Out of Joint 
With The Moral Order 





iijiji'liii-ii'liiii'-ilil! ! pI 



Andrew W. Archibald, d.d. 




Class 

Book._ 

Copyright^ .-. 



CQKRIGHT DEPOSffi 



Out of Joint with 
the Moral Order 



by the 
REV. ANDREW W. ARCHIBALD, D.D. 

Author of 

"THE BIBLE VERIFIED/' a THE EASTER HOPE," 
"A CRUISE TO THE ORIENT," ETC. 



"Man, proud man, 
Brest in a little brief authority, 

Plays such fantastic tricJcs before high heaven, 
As make the angels weep" 

— Shakespeare 




1922 

THE STRATFORD COMPANY. Publishers 

Boston, Massachusetts 



• An 's 



5 



Copyright, 1922 

The STRATFORD CO., Publishers 

Boston, Mass. 



The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 

SEP 28 72 

©C1A686154 



Contents 

Chapter Page 

I. Sour Grapes and Edged Teeth 1 

II. The Melting Pot 12 

III. Golden Calves 25 

IV. Holiday, Workaday, Holy Day 40 

V. Ostrich Nurture 54 

VI. Half-Baked People 65 

VII. Some Biblical and April Fools 78 

VIII. Shibboleth or Sibboleth 88 

IX. Fretful Porcupines 100 

X. A Powerful Searchlight 114 

XI. A Dramatic Appeal 127 

XII. Damascus Blades 141 

XIII. The Marathon Run 152 

XIV. Say So or Christian Expression 162 

XV. Scriptural Sticks 174 

XVI. The Complete Armor : Religious Preparedness 186 



to my brothers and sisters, 

in appreciation op the living, 

Robert, Mary; 

and in memory op the departed, 

James the Older, Thomas, James the Younger, John, 

Betsy, Jennie, Isabel, Margaret 



Preface 

THE thought of each chapter in this book is based on some 
Scriptural phrase or incident, while upon the super- 
structure light is made to play from historical, literary and 
classical sources. In the range of subjects considered, there 
is an advance from wide movements and from institutions 
to the more and more personal. The volume recognizes a 
moral order to the universe, and endeavors to relate man 
thereto. It emphasizes human responsibility with an eternal 
future for a background. It enters sympathetically into the 
feeling of Abraham Lincoln, who was fond of quoting from 
William Knox these lines : 

"Oh! Why should the spirit of mortal be proud? 
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, 
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 
Man passes from life to his rest in the grave." 

In the following pages, happy adjustments to the social and 
spiritual environment are sought. Hamlet was not wholly 
correct when he said, 

"The time is out of joint: cursed spite, 
That ever I was born to set it right !" 

The truer conception is that the man and not the time is 
"out of joint," and we thus get the title for the present 
work, namely, "Out of Joint with the Moral Order." 

The general condition of lawlessness and disorder follow- 



PREFACE 

ing the World War indicates the need of returning to funda- 
mentals, of getting back to the ancient teachings which gave 
us our Christian civilization. There is no safety in removing 
the restraints of the past. The larger liberty which is being 
urged is leading to anarchy. In the Athenian fashion, there 
is a constant running after new things. There is a following 
of strange gods in the changing industrial and sociological 
theories that are continually being propounded. The reaction 
in this direction, for a while justifiable perhaps, needs to be 
stayed. Said the prophet Jeremiah, "Ask for the old paths, 
where is the good way; and walk therein, and ye shall find 
rest for your souls." That is the message needed by the 
present age, which itself with its strife of classes, we must 
admit, is not properly articulated in a harmonious whole, any- 
more than was the generation of the disheartened Danish 
Prince, who felt that every thing was going wrong, nothing 
being "in tune with the Infinite." Even the novelist, 
Hutchinson, in his "If Winter Comes," regrettable as the 
profanity of the much-read book is, makes the hero, Mark 
Sabre, when things were crumbling about him by reason of 
the disorder arising from the great War, to say truthfully and 
forcefully, "The remedy's the old remedy. The old God." 
That was the hope of this secular author for a better and 
brighter future. That is what gave him the inspiration 
breathed in Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind." "If Winter 
comes, can Spring be far behind?" But after all, now as 
well as then, it is persons who are disjointed, more than is 
the century in which they live, and they must be influenced 
aright, not collectively so much as separately, one by one 
with line upon line and precept upon precept. The Chris- 
tianizing of the social order in a large way is not to be 
disparaged, but more of the tried and tested individualistic 

ii 



PREFACE 

method has again become desirable. It is only as obedience 
to the powers that be is diligently inculcated, that there can 
be insured a true freedom. License is by no means synony- 
mous with liberty. Revolution is allowable only in extreme 
cases, it should be the last resort. One of the classical writers 
of the Elizabethan era, Richard Hooker, uttered a truth that 
we would do well to appropriate, in the fine tribute that he 
paid to laiv: "Her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the 
harmony of the world. ' y Governor Calvin Coolidge, who was 
elected Vice President of the United States Nov. 2, 1920, in 
a Massachusetts election which commanded national atten- 
tion because he ran on a specifically "law and order' 9 plat- 
form, rightly swept into office (1919) by the overwhelming 
majority of 125,000, and received congratulatory telegrams 
from all over the country and even from the President of the 
United States of the opposite political party. This was a 
sign of promise when demoralization was widely prevailing. 
Evidently the Pilgrim faith had been taught to some purpose 
in the Old Bay State. If after the manner of the Fore- 
fathers, the tercentenary of whose coming we have been 
lately observing, there were more of the training up of our 
youth, this would be a distinct gain. If they were steadily 
impressed with their strict accountability, an advance would 
be registered. Moral responsibility should be emphasized. 
The "old-time religion " of sturdy virtues and pleasing graces 
should be revived. If the obligations of human brotherhood, 
as divinely set forth in the inspired charter that has been 
given us, were faithfully and conscientiously met, if mutual 
rights and duties were faced in a religious spirit, the Utopia 
of the ideal society would be realized. Genuine Christianity 
is the solvent of all difficult problems, national, social, domestic 
and individual. 

iii 



PREFACE 

While the seriousness of the present situation is recog- 
nized, there is no occasion for pessimism. Even when the 
Prussian threat was most aggressive, there was about it a 
good deal of camouflage, of that art of deception which was 
practiced when the good king Duncan of Scotland was 
murdered by Macbeth, who henceforth was conscience- 
stricken, but who endeavored to reassure himself by what the 
witches told him, that he should not be robbed of the fruits of 
his crime, till "the wood of Birnam" should be moved out of 
its fixed place. "Who can unfix the forest, and move it from 
its earth-bound roots?" Nevertheless, he was startled one 
day, when a servant with great agitation informed him that 
the forest was advancing in their direction. The fact was 
that Malcolm, the son and heir, who had been traitorously 
deprived of his throne, and a loyal thane, on drawing near 
with troops to dethrone the usurper, directed their followers 
to cut each a branch from the trees in their line of march, 
and to carry these aloft, and thus the wood of Birnam in 
a sense did leave the spot, where it always had been anchored, 
thereby contributing to the defeat of the murderer whose 
morale was undermined by the subterfuge. The Prussians, 
steadily proclaiming how unshakable and multitudinous were 
their forces, imagined we would see whole forests approach- 
ing for our destruction, but we saw through their camouflage, 
and, unlike the guilty Macbeth, we were unafraid. 

The German was never the resistless superman he claimed 
to be. We may apply to him the Norse legend found in 
Carlyle's "Heroes." Thor, the traditionary deity of the 
nation worshipping brute force, attacked a giant symbolizing 
the solid earth. He struck once, and plowed out a considerable 
valley, but the intended victim merely murmured in his 
sleep, "Did a leaf fall?" A second time the professedly 

iv 



PREFACE 

god-like Thor let fall a staggering blow that dug out a second 
and deeper valley, but the sleepy response was, "Was that 
a grain of sand ? ' ' Once more the murderous assailant lifted 
both hands, and dealt what supposedly would be a deadly 
stroke, and the deepest cleft of all was made, but the giant 
only stopped his snoring long enough to say drowsily, "There 
must be sparrows roosting in this tree, I think ; what is that 
they have dropt?" Comparatively speaking, there was little 
effect from the sledge-hammer assaults. Pan-Germanism 
struck the world, democratically organized, on the east, and 
on the west, and on the sea, and the mailed fist gouged out 
deep and bleeding valleys, but the gigantic combination 
against this power was not vitally affected, so far as the 
total final result was concerned. The Thor of might as against 
right failed at last. 

How thoroughly the malicious foe was beaten should 
not be allowed to become a fading memory. We surely can 
not forget the victory, which was fittingly celebrated by that 
wild outburst of jubilation around the globe when the armis- 
tice was signed November 11, 1918. There was good reason 
for the unrestrained gladness, when Germany was forced 
to sign the most drastic peace ever exacted of a defeated 
nation, and when in Paris on the following July 14, 1919, 
corresponding to America's glorious "Fourth," the event 
was celebrated by a triumphal procession in which marched 
picked contingents from all the Allied countries, the United 
States being represented by a thousand men all six feet high, 
to whom J. G. Holland's prophetic lines can be aptly applied: 

' ' Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog 
In public duty and in private thinking." 



PREFACE 

Armistice Day in 1920, after a lapse of two years, was 
solemnly but most significantly observed, when, "lest we 
forget," an unknown warrior representing the countless 
millions who had fallen was disinterred and reburied, one at 
the Arc de Triomphe in France and the other within West- 
minster Abbey in England. The two immortals were followed 
to their last resting place by President and cabinet, by King 
and Queen, by Field Marshals and Generals, by diplomats 
and statesmen, by softly sobbing women who each thought 
that the one being honored might be her beloved, and by 
unnumbered throngs who all uncovered when the remains 
were taken from the gun carriage, and who stood in profound 
silence for two minutes at eleven o'clock of the historic day, 
when for the last time dust was committed to dust. On 
Armistice Day in 1921, America's unknown hero received 
his final entombment in the amphitheater of the Arlington 
cemetery overlooking the capital of our country amid the 
most impressive ceremonies under national auspices with 
distinguished foreigners participating, like Marshal Foch 
of the French republic and Admiral Beatty of the British 
empire and General Diaz, Italy's most conspicuous military 
figure. The body was brought from France by the Olympia, 
the flagship of Admiral Dewey who on May 1, 1898, without 
the loss of a man sank the Spanish fleet in Manilla Bay. 
Telephone Companies by the installation of elaborate ampli- 
fiers and with a relay of expert helpers across the continent 
went to the expense, of making President Harding's funeral 
oration for the occasion to be heard not only in Washington 
where it was spoken but also in far-away San Francisco. We 
would not have taken such pains to celebrate anything but 
the greatest and most splendid victory, designed in the provi- 

vi 



PREFACE 

dence of God to bring "peace on earth/' it is to be hoped, 
even to the most distant islands, Browning's "sprinkled 
isles, lily on lily that o'erlace the sea." 

So that there is no ground for depression. President 
Harding on a religious occasion in 1922 said, "Without giving 
too much weight to alarmist expressions, we must nevertheless 
recognize that there, is a very apparent tendency to a lighter 
and more frivolous view of the citizen's relations to both 
State and Church." His plea was for a recognition of law 
"as sacred and supreme." Still his feeling was that things 
are not as bad as they seem. There is a tendency in human 
nature to bewail the present. Abraham Lincoln himself at 
the age of twenty-eight (and his utterance was strangely 
like that of many now) spoke of "the increasing disregard of 
law which pervades the country. ' ' We, however, can endorse 
his remedy for such a state of affairs, as, developing his 
theme, he added, "Let reverence for the laws be breathed 
by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles 
on her lap. Let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and 
in colleges. Let it be written in primers, spelling books, and 
almanacs. Let it be preached from the pulpits, proclaimed 
from legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice." 

When to-day we recall what has really happened since 
the boastful bully was defying all creation, we can not be 
otherwise than optimistic. Nevertheless, there are natural 
reactions, and we must give ourselves to the restoration of 
the orderly and the normal. We must begin to build again 
from the bottom. The discussions of this volume are meant 
to help in the reconstruction, as the primary and common 
virtues, and the basal and prosaic duties, are once more 
brought to the front. 

vii 



PREFACE 

The sixteen chapters would constitute suitable studies 
under the leadership of layman or clergyman for groups of 
men and of others in the Bible school, which almost invariably 
contains some who desire a change for a while from the 
regular uniform lessons. They could be utilized in Pastors' 
training classes on the fundamentals for the four months pre- 
ceding Easter each year, since they deal with practical and 
vital themes relating to life and destiny. They would exactly 
fit into the federation of churches scheme which has been 
announced, into the "program of parish evangelism adopted 
by eighteen denominations" for the January to Easter period, 
except that the four or five more general studies opening 
the series might be assigned to December, when necessary, 
with those that are more personal to follow. 

If the different captions seem novel, they nevertheless 
cover entirely serious discussions, and if their treatment 
seems out of the ordinary, they may on that account prove 
to be, particularly to the young and most laymen, all 
the more appealing. The general reader is constantly 
kept in mind. The volume, whether mistakenly or not, has 
purposely been made to be of the popular rather than of 
the Professorial type. The latter are many, of making which, 
the wise man would say, "there is no end." The former are 
at least more rare in these days of specialized knowledge, and 
they may be quite as acceptable to the average person for 
whom this work is designed. With him we walk through 
the pleasant fields of history and of literature and of the 
classics, and of every sphere furnishing luminous illustrations, 
to reach the deeply religious, which in view of the divine 
teaching of the kingdom of heaven being the first consideration 
is the old Catechism's "chief end of man," and is what 

viii 



PREFACE 

Christianity in our modern day emphasizes as needful for 
the unsettled and disturbed conditions following the most 
nearly universal upheaval known to human warfare. 

A. W. A. 

New Haven, Connecticut. 

Note. The chapter on Christian Expression has appeared 
previously for substance in The Treasury of New York, a 
monthly magazine then published by E. B. Treat & Company, 
whose permission to use here has been graciously granted. 



IX 



CHAPTER I 

Sour Grapes and Edged Teeth 

MAN finds himself placed in a moral order. He, can 
agree with Daniel Webster in saying that the greatest 
thought which ever occupied his mind was that of his per- 
sonal responsibility. But it is easy for one to endeavor to 
shift the burden of human accountability. He often tries 
to lay the blame of any delinquency upon the shoulders of 
others. The prophet Ezekiel represented such as saying, 
"The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth 
are set on edge." The inspired writer strongly combatted 
this position, which was taken by many of his contemporaries. 
We are to take issue with this plausible falsehood. 

All error contains a grain of truth. If the fathers eat 
sour grapes, the children's teeth are set on edge. God Him- 
self says that he will visit the iniquities of people upon their 
descendants. There is a connection between the sin of to-day 
and that of yesterday. There is something to the old-fashioned 
doctrine of Original Sin. The present age still feels the 
effects of the transgression of our first progenitors. The 
infidel plan used to be to ridicule this idea of the transmission 
of evil, but materialistic scepticism has become orthodox in 
this respect ; only it meanly charges the responsibility of our 
wrong-doing more directly upon our immediate ancestors, 
rather than upon the first parents of the human race. Or, if 
specially extenuating circumstances are sought, it has become 
the custom to enlarge upon the cumulative power of sin 

w 



OUT OP JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

through the ages. The thought is that we can not very well 
help ourselves, because of sinful tendencies that have been 
inherited, and that have grown powerful and perhaps irre- 
sistible through long centuries. Adam himself ate sour grapes 
in the forbidden fruit of Eden, and his children's teeth were 
set on edge, and the matter of course has been growing 
steadily worse, the evil has been developing with the lapse 
of years, till we are absolutely at the mercy of transmitted 
forces, of inherited tendencies. Hence we are not accountable 
beings. What is called sin is only misfortune. There is no 
escaping what has been fated. If we go astray, we are not 
particularly to blame, our fathers were, who handed down to 
us, as the catechism says, "by ordinary generation' ' their 
failings. 

The Christian predestinationist can very easily become 
the pagan fatalist. The fault, if any there be, is charged 
back to its origin. The sentence of death, the claim is, might 
properly be pronounced upon one who had been created 
innocent and had fallen, but not upon those who have been, 
as the Psalmist expresses it, conceived in sin, and shapen in 
iniquity, born with a proneness to evil as natural, Job would 
say, as the flying upward of sparks. Men may try to rise 
to nobler lives, but there is all the force of adverse circum- 
stances to drag them down. It is useless to struggle against 
this moral gravitation downward, this inbred principle of 
sin, as universal in its sway as the law of gravity, against 
which no single atom can successfully stand out. We are 
necessarily what we are made by our environment. 

Now however plausible such reasoning may seem, however 
much we may thus endeavor to shift responsibility, God meets 
us with the unequivocal declaration, "The soul that sinneth, 
it shall die. ' ' He does not let us, to the extent of relieving our- 

M 



SOUR GRAPES AND EDGED TEETH 

selves of personal guilt, attribute our edged teeth, our as- 
perities of character, to the sour grapes, to the conscious sins, 
in which our progenitors may have indulged. We are individ- 
ually responsible. Not that there is no moral contiguity, that 
the present and the past are not spiritually linked, for they 
are. There is a hereditability, not simply physical but extend- 
ing to the whole being of man. Iniquities of the fathers are 
visited upon their children. Sour grapes in one generation 
do make edged teeth in another. 

1. This is true first from the national standpoint, which 
the prophet had primarily in mind. The Jews in their 
Babylonian captivity, where they were at the time of which 
we are speaking, were aware that they were suffering for the 
sins of their fathers. Their only mistake was in supposing 
that there was no help, in imagining that they might as well 
submit to the inevitable, that they might as well go on sinning, 
that they had gotten to such a pass, there was no hope of a 
restoration to their beloved land. They were assured that 
the case was not so desperate, that they could again be God's 
own people if they would repent, if they would cease laying 
the whole blame upon their ancestry, whose guilt did indeed 
bring disaster to posterity, but posterity was not helpless, it 
could rise to newness of life. 

We know that the Jewish captives thus inspired did 
recover their independence, did once more become a nation in 
Judea, furnishing the line of descent for the Saviour of the 
world. And yet they did repeatedly suffer for the folly 
of their ancestors. The wickedness of one generation, over 
and over again, was transmitted in evil effects to another. 
And national retribution still follows national sin. The 
curse of slavery, sanctioned and fostered by the founders of 
our American government, was handed down to their 

[3] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

successors, whose benumbed consciences saw no way out of the 
unhappy dilemma in which they found themselves by reason 
of the transmitted evil. Had there not been prophets of 
exalted moral views to rouse the nation, the canker would 
have continued to eat into the very heart of the body politic, 
until there would have ensued the death and extinction of 
what is now a grand and free Republic. As it was, the evil 
was tolerated on the plea of its having been the fault of our 
forefathers, until, to atone for the wrong, there was required 
the sacrifice of thousands of precious lives. 

France has had to pay the penalty of her persecution of 
the Huguenots. Their expatriation by the hundred thousand 
drained her of the very best elements of society, and, as 
historians admit, the bloody French Revolution became pos- 
sible, because there was not moral force enough to counteract 
and hold in check the mob spirit of utter lawlessness. The 
Reign of Terror was a natural sequence. The excesses of the 
historic movement might have been avoided, and its benefits 
alone might have been the heritage of the nation. If the 
conserving leaven had not been lost out of the population, 
there would not have been the extreme reactions, from which 
there had to be a slow and painful recovery. God does 
visit national iniquity upon a people to the third and fourth 
generation. When the Germans in the Franco-Prussian war 
of 1870 marched victoriously into Paris, the Rev. A. F. 
Beard, D. D. says that "not less than eighty of the Emperor's 
personal staff, high in place and power, were children of the 
expelled Huguenots," who had been driven forth two hundred 
years before. Such are what are sometimes termed the 
revenges of time. Such, to use a classical figure, is the slow 
but exceeding fine grinding of the mills of the gods. The 
Greek fable of an avenging divinity, of a pursuing Nemesis, 

[4] 



SOUR GRAPES AND EDGED TEETH 

is not wholly a mythological conception. Sour grapes do 
bring edged teeth. Wicked deeds do carry with them destroy- 
ing power, extending down into the future. 

And yet nations, suffering from ancestral sin, are not 
helpless. A people may become so loaded down with accumu- 
lated evils, that reformation, redemption, seems impossible, 
but there is power in the gospel to save and elevate. The 
highlands of Scotland were once "cold and lonely heaths," 
says Gibbon, "over which the deer of the forest were chased 
by a troop of naked barbarians." Those savages have been 
transformed by Christianity into the most intelligent and 
most religious people perhaps on the face of the globe. Nine- 
teen centuries ago, Britain, says the same author, "was 
divided between thirty tribes of barbarians." What brought 
those natives out of a low tribal into a high civilized con- 
dition ? The religion of Jesus Christ. How about the original 
inhabitants of Germany? The writer already quoted, on the 
authority of Tacitus, says of them in the first century, "Each 
barbarian fixed his independent dwelling on the spot to which 
a plain, a wood, or a stream of fresh water, had induced him 
to give the preference. Neither stone, nor brick nor tiles, 
were employed in these slight habitations. They were indeed 
no more than low huts, of a circular figure, built of rough 
timber, thatched with straw, and pierced at the top to leave 
a free passage for the smoke." That is the way the Zulus 
and Africans of the lowest heathenism now live. "In the 
most inclement weather," it is added, "the hardy German 
was satisfied with a scanty garment made of the skin of some 
animal." He was like the wild, untutored Indian of our 
American continent when first discovered. 

Such creatures were not much like the cultured Germans 
of the present, with their Universities of learning, the best 

[5] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

in the world, and with their theological and Christian liter- 
ature that in many respects is unsurpassed. What has caused 
the marvelous change? These people owe their rise out of 
barbarism to the new life infused into them by the gospel, 
with which they came in contact as they left their native 
forests and swept down over southern Europe and the Roman 
empire for plunder. In the World War they seemed to 
relapse into savagery with their frightfulness, but this was 
true only of the military leaders and not of the rank and 
file of citizens. The masses of the people will yet see how 
they were misled by the camouflage of selfish, ambitious and 
unprincipled rulers, whose policies indeed have already been 
repudiated in the changing of the very constitution of the 
State from the imperialistic to the democratic type. 

So that while a nation may be carried low down by the 
weight of successive generations of sin, the ruin is not gen- 
erally irretrievable. The sour grapes of the past do not so 
edge the teeth of the present, that responsibility ceases and 
hope vanishes. A fallen nation can rise again. The power 
of sin is great, but that of the gospel is greater. It can take, 
and has taken, a nation that has long declined, and can lift it 
and has lifted it into a noble civilization. These monuments 
of grace on a large scale, should ever inspire the human heart 
to attempt great things, while the deplorable consequences 
of sin as seen in history through the rolling years should 
impress all with the terribleness of what can thus be trans- 
mitted with cumulative force. 

2. Individually the lesson is as impressive as it is nation- 
ally. We are to remember that the stream of tendencies is 
not resistless, that the awful tide can be stemmed, that our 
evil natures can be controlled. Our fathers may have sinned, 
but that is no reason why we should go on in the same course. 

[6] 



SOUR GRAPES AND EDGED TEETH 

We may have teeth set on edge by their eating of sour grapes, 
and it may be just so much harder for us to do right, but we 
can do it nevertheless, divine grace assisting. The man with 
the palsied arm in the New Testament story was commanded 
to stretch it forth, and he did, receiving strength with the 
effort. 

So it is religiously. It may be difficult for us to become 
or to live Christians. We may have by inheritance physical 
weaknesses whereby we are seriously handicapped. The 
acquiline nose is a facial feature, which has been transmitted 
through successive generations. The peculiar physiognomy 
of the Jew (and of the old Hittite) through long centuries 
has been a matter of common remark. Diseases to a certain 
extent are inherited. It is not strange, that the Greeks had 
their goddess of health, Hygeia, with her radiant complexion 
and with her bright and smiling face, a goddess, whose favor 
was well sought. Attention to the hygienic now is a re- 
ligious duty, especially since an infirmity may be handed 
down to posterity. Mental characteristics, too, appear in the 
line of lineal descent. This explains the appearance of great 
families in history. Every nation can point to houses, which 
have furnished a long list of distinguished persons. The 
Adams family might be instanced in our own country. Oliver 
Wendell Holmes in writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson said, 
"We have in New England a certain number of families who 
constitute what may be called the Academic Races. Their 
names have been on college catalogues for generation after 
generation. They have filled the learned professions, more 
especially the ministry, from the old colonial days to our 
own time. If," continues the Autocrat, "aptitudes for the 
acquisition of knowledge can be bred into a family as the 
qualities the sportsman wants in his dog are developed in 

[7] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

pointers and setters, we know what we may expect of a 
descendant of one of the Academic Races.' ' Holmes added 
that Emerson had such ' ' favoring antecedents, ' ' coming from 
a stock which had "been long under cultivation," and thus 
did he account for the greatness of the philosopher of Concord. 
Indeed it is no longer doubted that intellectual traits are 
transmitted. Children of parents with poor mental equip- 
ment are not apt to make much of a mark, though of course 
there are here as everywhere exceptions. 

But most startling of all is the fact that moral obliquities 
are transmitted. There is often the inheriting of temperament 
and disposition. A mother afflicted with kleptomania has 
a son who has a morbid desire for stealing. Marcus Aurelius 
will ever be remembered as the Roman emperor, who was a 
philosopher, and whose moral reflections seem almost in- 
spired, but the impurity of his wife gave to the empire 
and to the world a monster in the utterly depraved 
Commodus. . All the details we have been giving go 
toward the establishment of the truth of heredity, 
physically, mentally and morally. Nay, the sin of some quite 
remote ancestor may appear in the measurably distant 
descendant. There is more than is sometimes thought to the 
proverb, which we have been discussing. 

And yet never are the inherited tendencies such as 
to free from responsibilit}^. No one is put absolutely in the 
power of his inborn passions. The greatest sinner can be 
saved, and repeatedly the individual like the nation has 
risen superior to the forces of evil. God gives to every 
struggling soul grace sufficient ; where sin abounds, grace 
is much more abounding, said the chief of the apostles. 
Mankind are therefore inexcusable, if they continue in wrong 
courses. They can not plead natural inability, for God will 

[8] 



SOUK GRAPES AND EDGED TEETH 

make them morally able. A person may have much to contend 
with in inherited Aveaknesses, but it is for him to overcome 
inherent evil. Individual responsibility can not be merged 
into the ancestral. One's race, or his family lineage, may 
not be so favorable as that of some others. He might be more 
disposed to a Christian life, if he belonged to a religious 
people like the Scotch, or if his parents had been earnest 
Christians; but however unfavorable his antecedents in this 
regard, though his blood may be tainted with evil transmitted 
and intensified all the way down from our primeval parents, 
he must suffer the penalty all the same, if he does not reso- 
lutely face about. 

There is warning in the partial truth for which he is 
inclined to stand. Sin is cumulative, and unless steadily 
resisted can gain entire dominion over the soul. Inherited 
tendencies to evil, unless vigorously fought, will increase in 
strength, until frail humanity is utterly overwhelmed. The 
day of grace may be sinned away. Jerusalem filled up the 
measure of her iniquity, and was forever destroyed as a re- 
ligious Capital, and the Jews as a nation, as a theocracy, 
became extinct, though even in this case there may be a 
possibility of ultimate restoration. We can never fix the 
limit, which however may be reached. The individual simi- 
larly can imperil his eternal welfare. God does not always 
strive with sin, we are divinely taught. Agassiz, said Joseph 
Cook, once allowed himself to be lowered hundreds of feet 
into the yawning crevasse of a glacier. After a while, he 
gave the signal to be drawn up, but there had nearly been 
a fatal miscalculation. ' ' In our haste, ' ' said the great natura- 
list himself in giving his experience, "we had forgotten the 
weight of the rope. We had calculated the weight of my per* 
son, of the basket in which I rode, and of the tackling that 

[9] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

was around the basket; but we had forgotten the weight of 
the rope that sank with me into the chasm. The three men 
at the summit were not strong enough to draw me back. I 
had to remain there till one of the party went five miles — 
two and a half out and two and a half back — to the nearest 
tree to get wood enough to make a lever, and draw me up." 
It was a narrow escape, and a little more of the rope's weight 
might have, sunk him to the bottom of the ice chasm, where 
he might have been either frozen or crushed. 

Many a man experiments with sin, he lets himself down 
into the chasm of cold worldliness or unbelief. He thinks 
he will not go too far for safety. He hopes soon to be elevated 
into the sunshine of a warm Christian life, but he descends 
lower and lower. He calculates his strength of will, as 
Agassiz did his own weight; he calculates the power of in- 
herited weaknesses, of the surroundings of sinful, human 
nature, as the scientist took into consideration the basket and 
tackling, but he forgets that sin is cumulative, that the very 
fact of his descending gives momentum to the power of sin. 
The weight of the rope, of the downward tendency, is over- 
looked, and he goes down hopelessly to the bottom. He, pre- 
sumed too much, he did not consider the momentous problem 
in all its bearings. The soul that sinneth shall die, and all 
the more because of inherited sin. That only adds to the 
weight which sinks to perdition. 

There is one alternative when we are in such a desperate 
situation, when our sins, as a sacred poet has said, "like 
mountains round us close.' ' In exactly that exigency there 
is such a thing as a splendid venture of faith, quickly seizing 
the opportunity that has a glorious outcome. This finds illus- 
tration in a traveller who fell into the deep opening of a moun- 
tainous glacier. He was at the bottom of the chasm, whose 

[10] 



SOUR GRAPES AND EDGED TEETH 

glaring ice walls rose perpendicularly to a dizzy and bewilder- 
ing height. He could see only a narrow strip of blue sky far 
above him, and there was no escape in that direction, up those 
slippery steeps. His only hope, of which he availed himself, 
was a roaring stream far below, which had melted from the 
surrounding ice pack. He could not see it in the darkness 
through which he slowly and painfully groped his way 
downward, but he heard its music, and suddenly made the 
plungie, unhesitatingly committing himself to its rushing 
waters. There was a brief sense of unutterable blackness and 
of a whirling, resistless force bearing him onward, and shortly 
he emerged into a green and flowering Swiss meadow at the 
foot of the towering Alps, and he was in the beautiful sun- 
shine, with peace and calm in his heart. In the religious 
sphere, the important thing is to act quickly at the critical 
moment. Shakespeare caught the thought, when in his Julius 
Caesar he said impressively : 

" There is a tide in the affairs of men, 

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; 

Omitted, all the voyage of their life 

Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 

On such a full sea are we now afloat ; 

And we must take the current when it serves, 

Or lose our ventures/ ' 



[»] 



CHAPTER II 
The Melting Pot 

IN THE preceding chapter we saw that there is a moral 
order to which there must be conformity both individually 
and nationally, if there is to be safety. We are to consider 
next how this applies to our own America. Isaiah says, ' ' The 
little one shall become a thousand, and the small one a strong 
nation: I the Lord will hasten it in its time." This would 
seem to teach that religion is essential to national perpetuity, 
or, as it is elsewhere Scripturally expressed, "Righteousness 
exalteth a nation." Some emphasize the danger to America 
from the industrial situation, from the complications and 
conflicts growing out of the, threatening relations between 
capitalists and laborers, the whole social fabric bending to 
the point of breaking. Can we stand the stress and strain, 
to which in this regard we are being subjected? 

Deserving of equally serious consideration is the influx 
of foreign and sometimes alien populations. We know that 
the greatest empire which the world has seen, the Roman, did 
go down before the flood of barbarians rushing with hostile 
intent from the north in Goths and Vandals and Huns. 
Jeremiah depicts the peril to Judah from a similar source, 
wheal he says pictorially, "What seest thou? And I said, I 
see a boiling caldron ; and the face thereof is from the north. 
Then Jehovah said unto me, Out of the north evil shall break 
forth upon all the inhabitants of the land." That is, enemy 
forces, like the hot, scalding contents of a boiling pot tipped 

[12] 



THE MELTING POT 

southward, were to overspread and engulf and burn the 
country of God's people. There is a similar danger to our 
land from vast immigrations, and we can speak of a seething 
pot as picturing the state of things, though the, figure can be 
changed from its ancient to a modern adaptation. In 
Zangwill's well-known book and play, it is the irrepressible 
David, the young violinist, who says: "America is God's 
Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe 
are melting and re-forming." His idea was that of a fusing 
into one of different metals. From such an amalgamation of 
races he felt that there was to emerge the true American, 
"the coming superhuman. ' ' Even in the case of the irruption 
into the Roman empire of northern savages, there was a 
happy outcome under an overruling providence in their ulti- 
mate Christianization. With us the situation is still more 
hopeful, for the thousands of immigrants annually flowing 
in upon us are not hostile, they are merely trying to better 
their condition. But even then are, they not a menace to our 
civilization? The answer can be decidedly, No, if the true 
solvent is applied, namely, that of the gospel. 

1. First, we will see how a similar problem has been 
worked out successfully in another people's history. We will 
note how the present English nation has been built up through 
the shaping influence of religion from very small beginnings 
and from the most diverse elements. We have here an 
example of the little one becoming a thousand and the small 
one a strong nation through the Lord's hastening. To prove 
this, we have only to recall England's past. Ancient writers 
told strange stories of an island far out to sea, beyond the 
pillars of Hercules, beyond our Gibraltar. It, however, had 
a very shadowy existence, till Julius Caesar gave it reality 
by landing on its shores 55 B. C. What sort of inhabitants 

[13] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

did it contain ? They wore the customary garb of barbarians, 
the skins of animals, or they went practically naked like our 
early American Indians. Cowper said most truly : 

"Time was, when clothing sumptuous or for use, 
Save their own painted skins, our sires had none." 

"When the Roman general, Suetonius, about 60 A. D. pro- 
ceeded to conquer Britain, he was astonished at the wildness 
of the natives, who were nothing less than crude savages. 
They lived in the woods and in caves. They offered up to 
their gods sacrifies not only of animals, but often also of 
human beings. Their degradation was much greater than 
that of the lowest Filipinos to-day. But the gospel was intro- 
duced among them, and thereupon they made, says Hume, 
great "advances toward arts and civil manners." 

Then came, apparent disaster, when in the fifth century 
great hordes of German barbarians poured into the country. 
These, belonging in the main to two tribes, the Angles and 
the Saxons, overran and practically submerged the populations 
previously occupying the territory. These Anglo-Saxons were 
savages, who, becoming with others seven separate kingdoms, 
were continually at warfare, the historian Knight comparing 
them to so many * ' Choctaws and Cherokees. ' ' Of their con- 
quest of the Britons, Gibbons says, "The practice, and even 
the remembrance, of Christianity were abolished." Hume 
says that they caused the country to revert to its "ancient 
barbarity." The cultivated Romans regarded them as fit 
only for the slave market, and raids were made upon them 
for this purpose. By the civilized they were regarded about 
as the Negroes of Africa used to be looked upon, except that, 
instead of black faces and kinky locks, they had fair features 

[Ml 



THE MELTING POT 

and flaxen hair. When a religious father saw some of them 
on an auction block in Rome, and when on inquiry he was 
informed that they were Angles, he gave utterance to that 
historic pun on their name, that they could more properly 
be called Angels. He then and there resolved that they should 
be such, not only in appearance but in fact. Afterward as 
Pope Gregory the Great he sent Christian Missionaries to 
them in their distant island home. Did they need Christian- 
izing ? They were the veriest heathen, worshipping numerous 
divinities in the grossest manner. Their ambition was to 
drink their intoxicants from the skulls of their defeated foes. 
It was to such that the pious Augustine and his devoted 
band went 597 A. D., gradually winning over King Ethelbert 
of Kent, who providentially had married a French princess of 
Christian antecedents, the celebrated Queen Bertha. He be- 
came a convert to his wife's religion, and thus one pagan 
tribe of our ancestors was Christianized. The other divisions 
of the Saxon Heptarchy were not slow to follow, and in 664 
A. D. the various branches of the Anglo-Saxon Church were 
united, and there logically followed a political union. In 
the year 827 under Egbert the seven independent powers were 
consolidated into a nation, and the united country was called 
Angle-land, that is, England, and the English race began 
its march onward and upward. It was by Christianity that 
the various warring tribes were unified and compacted into 
a mighty people. Out of crude Britons and Anglo-Saxons, and 
later out of semi-civilized Danes and Normans, was developed 
the powerful English nation. Nor was it congenial elements 
that were finally harmonized. Every reader of Sir Walter 
Scott's Ivanhoe will remember the intensity and bitterness of 
feeling, which that romance, true to history in this respect, 
portrayed as existing between the Norman and Saxon, 

[15] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

between the conquering lord and the rebelling vassal, but 
eventually the separating lines faded away. Tennyson in his 
welcome to Alexandra, when she became the bride of the 
Prince who subsequently sat on the throne as Edward the 
Seventh, said proudly, 

"Saxon and Norman and Dane are we," 

as the poet indicated the complexion, the racial composition, of 
the mightiest people on earth, whose drum-beat is literally 
heard round the globe, the sun never setting on the world- 
wide dominion. With such a splendid development under the 
moulding influence of Christianity, we ought to be filled 
with a great hope for our own national future. 

2. Turning now to America, after this encouraging lesson 
from the past, here is to be enacted on a larger scale than in 
the old world the great unfolding drama of civil and religious 
freedom. Recall the small beginnings, whether at historic 
Lexington and Concord, where the embattled farmers, says 
Emerson, "fired the shot heard round the world," or whether 
at Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. Let us picture the latter 
somewhat in detail, recalling how the Revolutionary heroes 
on that date stood behind a hastily-constructed redoubt on 
a spur of Bunker Hill, while the British Regulars of more 
than twice their number were marching in flashing armor 
up the steep ascent to dislodge and capture the American 
"rebels." Prescott and Warren were the leaders of the 
intrenched colonial forces, and though the red-coats drew 
nearer and nearer till buttons could be counted and faces 
recognized, not a shot was sent from behind the parapet of 
fence and earth and newly-mown grass. The silence was 
oppressive, the patience was sublime, but Prescott and Warren 

[36] 



THE MELTING POT 

both were counseling, Steady now ! wait till you see the whites 
of their eyes, and then fire low ! When this order was given, 
the devouring flame leaped forth, and, says General Car- 
rington in his "Battles of the American Revolution, ' ? "the 
whole front goes down. For an instant the chirp of the 
grasshopper and the cricket in the freshly-cut grass might 
almost be heard; then the groans of the suffering; then the 
shouts of the patient yeomen.' ' A similarly deadly volley 
repulsed a second attack, and a retreat followed a third 
onslaught only because the ammunition of the patriots became 
completely exhausted. Though there was a temporary and 
technical defeat, more than twice as many British as 
Americans were killed, and the first real battle for indepen- 
dence had been fought, and the conflict went on till freedom 
was gained. Warren was among the last to leave the redoubt, 
but at the moment of departure he fell, shot through the 
head, but his name is gratefully cherished by a nation to-day, 
and on the spot where he yielded up his life for his country, 
exactly fifty years afterward, June 17, 1825, was laid by 
Lafayette the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument. 

Daniel Webster of magisterial frame and massive head 
and lustrous eyes delivered the oration that has come to be 
regarded as a classic. The same eloquent statesman was the 
impressive orator on June 17, 1843, when the finished monu- 
ment, which springs into the air 221 feet, was dedicated, in 
the presence, of the President of the United States, and of 
a mass of people whose upturned faces were like a limitless 
sea. Standing at the base, of the fine shaft that was to rise, 
came in 1825 the Websterian flight of eloquence, "Let it rise 
till it meet the sun in his coming ; let the earliest light of the 
morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its sum- 
mit." The language of the same speaker in 1843 at the 

[17] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

completion of the work was no less inspiring, when he cried, 
"Here it stands ... It is itself the orator of this occasion.' ' 
Thus redolent of patriotic memories is June 17, which is 
annually observed as a holiday in the Old Bay State, and 
fittingly, because in a sense there then began in a small way 
a nation that has grown to be the most powerful on earth. 

We certainly then were a little one and a small one, but 
under the blessing of Christian civilization we have already 
become a thousand and a strong nation, and we are to expand 
and strengthen still more. Less than a century and a half 
ago, we were a people who numbered under four millions, 
and now we are above one hundred millions, and still our 
population is increasing from immigration alone by the 
hundred thousand annually, and more than one single year 
has shown an accession of a full million and beyond. From 
every part of the globe they are coming and of all sorts. 

"Leaden lustre and golden glow — 
Into the melting pot they go." 

I 

The land, which was to be possessed by the chosen people 
anciently, was occupied by Amorites, and Hittites, and 
Canaanites, and Hivites, and Jebusites, and Gazites, and Ash- 
dotites, and Askelonites, and Gittites, and Ekronites, and 
time would fail to tell what others. Well, they are all here 
in our new land of promise, Scotch and Irish, Welsh and 
English, French and German, Spanish, Portugese, Italian, 
Swiss, Turk, Russian, Dane, Swede, Norwegian, Cuban, 
Haiwaian, Malayan ; they are all ours, and the question is not 
as of old how to exterminate them, the problem is a more 
difficult one than that, how to absorb and harmonize the 
diverse elements, how to form out of the heterogeneous masses 

„_. t l8 ] .. 



THE MELTING POT 

a homogeneous body politic, how to carry out President Mc- 
Kinley's plan of "benevolent assimilation." Nothing but the 
power of the gospel can make us one people. 

Under that divine influence, and only under that, shall 
we see Dr. Schaff's hope becoming a fact, a new and distinct 
nationality, realizing, he said, "the unity and universality of 
the human family, with a continent for its home and two 
oceans for its outlet to the other continents." For, as he 
added, "if the present English nation is superior to any of 
the three elements (the Celtic, the Anglo-Saxon, and the 
Norman-French) of which it is composed, may we not reason- 
ably expect that the American nationality will ultimately be 
an advance upon .... the nationalities which contribute 
to its growth?" That surely can be our expectation. Ours 
is the great work of unifying on the principle of making all 
"one in Christ." Immigration is a safe movement, provided 
that there is a wise and reasonable restriction, so that we shall 
not be literally swamped, so that the irrigating flood shall 
not become the destroying deluge, and provided that we 
give ourselves steadily to the Americanizing of the new 
comers and to the Christianizing of the whole social order. 

And what a splendid field it is on which this battle for 
the millenium is to be fought! We hardly appreciate the 
scope of our broad acres. Palestine seemed in Biblical times 
a wonderfully spacious country. The sacred writers speak 
proudly of its stretching "from sea to sea." The phrase 
occurs more than once, and it meant from the Dead Sea to the 
Mediterranean, and we know how extensive that was. It was 
all of fifty miles. Tremendous, was it not? When we talk 
of "from sea to sea," we have in mind two of the vastest 
oceans of earth, the Atlantic and the Pacific, and we count 
not fifty but nearly three thousand miles. Then when we 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

include Alaska, that great possession lying away to the north- 
west, and the Philippines as far to the southwest, to say 
nothing of other isles of the sea, we feel that we were correctly 
described by him who said that we were bounded on the 
north by the Aurora Borealis, on the east by the rising sun, 
on the south by the equator, and on the west by the day of 
judgment. 

We dwell with admiration upon the empire of the 
Caesars stretching from the Euphrates to the Pillars of 
Hercules, but, said Joseph Cook, the " Roman eagles, when 
their wings were strongest, never flew as far as from Plymouth 
Rock to the Golden Gate." Territorially we are more than 
twice as large as the Roman empire ever was. There are 
familiar comparisons which are often made. The United 
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland could be quite easily 
set down in the single State of New Mexico. It would lack 
a good deal of filling out Montana, and, put in California, it 
would rattle round like David in Saul's armor. The British 
lion could range at pleasure in the Gold State of the Pacific, 
and never imagine it was in a cage. France is supposed to 
be considerable of a country, but it is smaller than Texas 
alone, as is also Germany. We have given away to railroads 
three times as much land as Great Britain contains. If we 
had France, Germany and England, we could make a present 
of all three to some corporation, and scarcely miss the little 
garden plots geographically speaking, though we would, 
immensely, from the historical standpoint. 

Moreover, all our thousands of square miles are eventually 
to be occupied. Instead of one hundred million, we probably 
are to have eighty-five hundred million inhabitants, and in- 
deed with as dense a population as Great Britain and Ireland 
our census would show nine hundred and twenty-eight mil- 



THE MELTING POT 

lions. Dr, N. D. Hillis, successor to Henry Ward Beecher in 
the Plymouth pulpit, has said that in Texas he was once 
invited to visit a farmer, who told him it was only 54 miles 
up the lane to his front door, and who casually remarked 
that when the hired man started out to plow around a field, 
he put a trunk on the plow, and kissed his family goodbye, 
as he would not be able to get back till Fall. This was a 
playful way of indicating how large the Lone Star State is, 
and if it were as thickly settled as Belgium used to be before 
the World War, it would be inhabited by 135 millions of 
people, more than are in the entire United States at present, 
about 35 millions more. 

With as many to the square mile as the province of 
Kiangsu in China had in 1812, Iowa itself would support 
forty-six millions of people; and no more crowded than 
Massachusetts, that single prairie Commonwealth would 
have a population of twelve millions. What possibilities of 
growth before us according to such figures! The lines of 
the poet are no exaggeration : 

* ' I hear the tread of pioneers, of nations yet to be ; 

The first low wash of waves, where soon shall roll a human sea. 

The rudiments of empire here are plastic yet, and warm, 
The chaos of a mighty world is rounding into form." 

We should see to it, that it does thus round beautifully 
into form, that this glorious result is attained, that there 
shall be no more hyphenated Americans such as we had in 
the recent past, that the almost countless millions yet to 
constitute this nation shall be moulded by Christianity into 
a loyal and unified people whose God is the Lord. The 

[21] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

Americanizing of foreigners within our borders should include 
the teaching them of our own language, and the refusing 
them of the ballot till they have acquired the use of our 
tongue. The Christian sentiment of our country ought to 
be strong enough to constrain Education Boards and even 
the Government (saying nothing of religious institutions like 
the Y. M. C. A.) to establish and support industrial and night 
schools for the benefit of immigrants, who likewise should 
be instructed in the principles and ideals of their proposed 
new citizenship. The need along this line was forcibly brought 
home to us when we became a participant in the World War. 
When the draft age was from 21 to 31 years, it was revealed 
that the aliens subject to conscription numbered a million 
and a quarter, of whom 34 per cent, or more than 400,000 of 
them (had they all been called into service) would not have 
been able to comprehend the orders issued to them by their 
commanders. When the years for conscription were made 
to range from 18 to 45, there were over three million males 
who had come to us from other lands whose utterances to us 
seemed like Babel sounds, and one-third of them, a full 
million, would have been like deaf men, so far as any military 
training of them was concerned. These figures of a reliable 
authority are based on the census of 1910, and the exhibit for 
1917, when we entered the great conflict, would have been 
much less favorable, in view of the heavy accessions to our 
population in late years from non-English sources. An 
actual illustration of the lamentable situation was given 
us in one of our cantonments, where a captain saluted his 
superior officer who had finished giving some specific direc- 
tions, and remarked that not a solitary person in his company 
had understood a word of what had been said. This surely 
was an anomalous and absolutely intolerable condition of 

[22] 



THE MELTING POT 

things. The uplift and unification of our miscellaneous ele- 
ments, therefore, should proceed after the distinctively 
American order, through church and school. 

To be sure, it sometimes seems a hopeless project, as we 
annex alien populations, and as immigrants of all nationalities 
pour upon our shores, but if the regenerating and assimilating 
power of the gospel could develop the noble English race out 
of savage Briton and heathen Anglo-Saxon and piratical 
Dane and inferior Norman, we need not despair of the far 
better elements which it is ours to shape. It is said that a dis- 
tinguished English divine, standing on the bridge at Niagara 
one midnight, and gazing down at the ' i seething chaos below, ' ' 
and listening to the "ceaseless roar of that avalanche of 
water," considered it a "fit emblem of the restless and 
bewildering whirlpool of American life; but when he raised 
his eyes to the moonlit sky, there arose a cloud of spray twice 
as high as the Falls themselves, silent, majestic, immovable; 
that silver column glittering in the moonbeams seemed a 
truer image of American history, of the upward, heaven- 
aspiring destiny which should emerge from the distractions 
of the present. ' ' The tide of immigration does wash tumult- 
uously upon our shores, but out of the breakers there is to 
rise a Christian nation beautiful as the silver column of 
Niagara's spray. If only we will follow the course of the 
star of empire with the Star of Bethlehem, if with religious 
purpose and endeavor we will keep abreast of the great 
westward movement of the populations of the globe, all will 
be well. Here, too, is it true that this tide, that of immi- 
gration, taken at the flood, will move on to a most fortunate 
issue, to a most happy outcome, as racial complexities cul- 
minate in a great nation of a new type. All should do their 

[*] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL OEDER 

part in contributing to this coming ideal nationality, which 
is to be a wonderful composite. In no other way can we be 
assured of the perpetuity of America, of its continued force- 
fulness in the making of history that shall be resplendent. 



[24] 



CHAPTER III 

Golden Calves 

THERE is one thing which more than all else threatens 
the moral order of society, and that is the licensed 
saloon. For its elimination every man should set his face 
like flint. He is under heavy bonds to see to it that there 
is a safe environment. There has been in our day a great 
awakening along this line, and much attention is rightly 
being paid to social ethics. We properly are being urged to 
consider the conditions of the community in which we live. 
Of course, we have been taught from the very beginning, 
from Genesis itself, that we are our brother's keeper, and 
the great Teacher insisted that we should love our neighbor 
as ourselves. Nevertheless, in our time a new emphasis is 
being placed on this truth, and especially in its application 
to the open bar, to the legalized dramshop, which confessedly 
is a most demoralizing force. 

At present one has every encouragement to take an 
unequivocal stand here. The prohibition of vodka in an 
empire like Russia during the World War shows the advance 
that is being made in this direction. The curbing of agencies 
for the promoting of drinking in other leading nations in 
order to greater efficiency during the same mighty crisis, is 
another straw indicating which way the wind is blowing. 
Great corporations and railroads are making rules for the 
dethroning of King Alcohol. When the majority report on 
the Webb bill for national prohibition was given to Congress 

[*5] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

in February, 1917, it was authoritatively stated that half of 
the States of the Union had declared for the cause, that 
eighty-five per cent of our territory had outlawed the saloon, 
and that more than sixty per cent of our population were 
living under the "dry" regime. 

Near the close of the same memorable year was the 
passing by Congress, by both House and Senate, of a pro- 
hibition amendment to the national Constitution, the same 
to become effective upon its adoption within seven years by 
three-fourths of our 48 States, and the required number was 
reached on January 16, 1919, and this insured the beginning 
of constitutional prohibition on that date of 1920. Meanwhile 
the good work of ratification went right on till all of the 48 
States had acted favorably except three of unenviable dis- 
tinction, Rhode Island and Connecticut and New Jersey. The 
campaign was of the whirlwind type, of the sort indicated 
by Julius Caesar when he said, "Veni, vidi, vici," I came, I 
saw, I conquered. And now the conquest of the world is 
planned. 

To be sure, Isaiah speaks of foes that "weave the spider's 
web," and this is particularly true of liquor men, who 
gather thousands of our citizens into their meshes, that are 
not easily broken. But the figure, while speaking of their 
strength, according to a better interpretation sets forth 
their weakness. This certainly applies to all legal technical- 
ities and ingenious arguments, which are woven to obstruct 
the advancing movement of temperance. A great moral re- 
form does not stop for gauzy subterfuges. No spider's web 
is allowed permanently to stand in the way of right and 
justice. Weak strands laced together with apparent strength 
are sooner or later brushed aside. And yet dealers in booze 
imagine that possession is nine points of the law, and they 

[26] 



GOLDEN CALVES 

can not see why they need to heed the continually rising 
sentiment against their business, why they need to shift 
from the ground occupied by their craft from time im- 
memorial. One is reminded of the boy, who whimpered 
and cried because the sun began to come into his eyes through 
the window where he had been sitting. His mother suggested 
that he would do well to move, but he replied peevishly that 
he had gotten there first. He only fidgeted and vainly ex- 
pected the sun to do the moving. That is the way it is with 
saloon-keepers, who claim the right, so to speak, of previous 
possession and of long custom, and as the light shines and 
fairly pours into their eyes, they fuss and complain, ap- 
parently believing in the theory of Jasper, the noted colored 
preacher, that the "sun does move." It, however, does not, 
and they might better do the moving, for the glorious sun 
of temperance is coming up with noontide splendor, and is 
going to flash more brightness yet into the blinking eyes of 
our enemies. While their cause is strongly entrenched in 
the sinful hearts of millions, who are held as flies are by a 
spider's web, after all, saloons are eventually to disappear like 
bedewed cobwebs on the grass before the rising orb of day. 

Sometimes there is the sneering prophecy, that the move- 
ment for prohibition will be of short duration, and will end 
when the heat of perspiring fanatics has subsided. The 
sweat, in which temperance people do get, has yet a meaning 
not always truly divined. We recall in this connection what 
is related of Alexander the Great, as he was about to set 
out on one of his successful expeditions. A cypress image 
of one of the gods, we are informed, "was seen to sweat in 
great abundance," to the consternation of many who thought 
this an unfavorable omen, but an augur who was consulted 
said that this "so far from presaging ill" to the distinguished 

[27] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

general only meant that Alexander "should perform acts so 
important and glorious as would make the poets and musicians 
of future ages labor and sweat to describe and celebrate them. ' ' 
The perspiration in which hot-headed prohibitionists (as they 
are opprobriously called) get, is not ominous of evil to their 
cause. It is rather an intimation, that their successes are 
going to be so great as to make an already perspiring opposi- 
tion sweat still more to relate how no license is gaining. The 
hotter the better all around. We should get so warmed up 
on the matter, that we shall be in a regular perspiration, and 
that will be auspicious, meaning that our foes will get hotter 
and hotter, till they fairly perspire over the progress we are 
making. 

Notwithstanding the increasing success that is being 
ours, there remain apologists for the licensing of the greatest 
evil there is in our community life. They do not meet the 
question squarely, but they resort to all sorts of makeshifts 
in the endeavor to make their position seemingly tenable. 
They are like the Biblical Aaron, who once sought to justify 
himself in an unworthy course by the miserable excuse, ' ' And 
there came out this calf. ' ' The circumstances of that utterance 
are familiar. 

Moses had been absent on Sinai, on the top of the mount, 
for about a month, receiving the great commandments of the 
Decalogue. The people on the plains below became uneasy. 
They wanted a god they could see, and not one hidden away 
among the clouds draped around a distant, frowning sum- 
mit. They had lost confidence in their leader who was having 
his historic interview with Jehovah. They expressed their 
feelings to Aaron, who tried for a while to put them off, but 
the mob becoming more and more excited and persistent in 
their demands, he yielded and made them the golden calf, 

[28] 



GOLDEN CALVES 

around which they danced in shame. The great lawgiver 
appeared upon the disgraceful scene, and asked his prime 
minister what such disreputable conduct meant, and the 
reply for substance was, Now do not be angry; you know 
what people these are to manage,; they just insisted upon 
having visible gods, and so the gold they brought was cast 
by me into the fire, "and there came out this calf." Aaron 
would have us understand that he was not accountable, that 
it walked right out of itself. There, never was a better illus- 
tration of human attempt to shift responsibility, and we 
feel that a very personal application might have been made, 
such as Robert Burns once made. The Scottish poet, on 
hearing a sermon from the text that we shall ' * grow up like 
calves of the stall, ' ' wrote these lines : 

' ' Right, sir ! your text 1 11 prove it true, 

Though heretics may laugh ; 
For instance, there's yourself just now, 
God knows, an unco calf!" 

There are those who show their shiftiness by an insincere 
arguing for moral suasion, while they solemnly taboo all legal 
action. This matter, however, has to do not only with the 
persuasive but also with the restrictive. Christianity com- 
bines the law and the gospel, and the situation may be such 
as to call out its sterner rather than its milder features. 
When New England in Revolutionary days asked of Quaker 
Pennsylvania powder for war, the latter, even with the peace 
views of its citizens, voted the appropriation, says Benjamin 
Franklin, "for the purchase of bread, flour, wheat, or other 
grain." Some did not like the language, the specifications, 
but the Governor concerned said, "I shall take the money, 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

for I understand very well their meaning: other grain is 
gunpowder." The good Friends raised no objection to the 
interpretation ; they evidently thought that other grain should 
be powder. They also purchased for themselves a large gun, 
which they bought under the name of a fire-engine, and it was 
that, when the igniting spark sent a ball straight toward 
the enemy. While ministers preach a gospel of peace, they 
do not demur to its being understood to mean occasionally 
thunder and lightning. They want the Church to be a fire- 
engine to assist in firing out of every community all saloons. 
1. The first type of defender for these is the drinker. He 
acts the part of Aaron. He says that the dramshop is a 
necessity. He lays the fault, if any there be, upon the inborn 
passions of man, which it may be unfortunate to possess, but 
which are in the constitution nevertheless, and which must 
be satisfied, and which, therefore, must have places for their 
gratification. These surging desires constitute a kind of mob 
force, before which he pleads human helplessness, while he 
advocates resorts for drinking. What is the result? What 
is the outcome? There comes out a calf, whose horns are 
destructive of every one that ' ' takes a horn, ' ' whose one horn 
is pauperism and whose other horn is crime, and either horn 
of that dilemma is bad enough. It is quite generally con- 
ceded that most of our paupers and criminals are made 
such by strong drink. A Democratic Judge of Iowa attributed 
"seven-tenths of the crimes committed' ' to the use of in- 
toxicants. A great Daily of Chicago, though friendly to the 
liquor power, has yet made this admission: "An overwhelm- 
ingly large proportion of the crimes against person and 
property are due to the saloons." The Wardens of our 
State Penitentiaries give similar reports, one of them stating 
that "at least sixty per cent" of the convicts go there be- 

[30] 



GOLDEN CALVES 

cause of "intoxicating liquors." Chief Justice Noah Davis 
of the Supreme Court of New York charged eighty per cent 
of all crimes to the drink habit. The testimony abroad is to 
the same effect. Lord Coleridge, who was made Chief Justice 
of the mother country in 1880 said, "If we could make 
England sober, we would shut up nine-tenths of her prisons.' ' 
The long-time hero of British politics, Gladstone, affirmed, 
that the iniquitous traffic inflicted more harm upon mankind 
"than the three great historic scourges, war, famine, and 
pestilence combined. " 

Then the prevalence of drunkenness itself is deplorable. 
The Spartans, says Plutarch, were accustomed now and then 
to make the Helots, their slaves, ' ' drink to excess, and to lead 
them in that condition into their public halls, that the 
children might see what a sight a drunken man is." We do 
not have to resort to any such device, for the victims of the 
intoxicating cup now are a frequent spectacle, and the 
saloon-system is largely responsible. There social cheer and 
song have added to the evil, giving an element of fascination 
to the destruction wrought. Professor Fisher of Yale said 
regarding Athens 405 B. C, "The long walls and fortifications 
were demolished by the ruthless conqueror, the work of 
destruction being carried on to the sound of the flute." The 
embattlements of the soul have crumbled and are crumbling 
to the music that is heard in the resort of the drinker. 

With this indictment of various particulars against the 
Scriptural ox that gores, the animal surely needs to be shut 
up, for it is a very "bull of Bashan," committing ravages 
that make us shudder. But when it is proposed to confine 
the beast, to keep it out of a community, to close the saloon, 
many a one falls back on Aaron's weak excuse of helplessness 
in the situation. Instead of taking the calf squarely by the 

[3i] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

horns and destroying it outright by legal enactment, by the 
prohibitory, by a no-license vote, he dances all around it, like 
the Israelites of old. 

2. Not only the drinker, but the saloon-keeper, or his 
apologist, takes a similar attitude. He finds himself sur- 
rounded by a great mass of people, who have lost their relish 
for the God of Moses. They want something more tangible 
than the so-called spiritual, something that will appeal to 
their senses. The old religion is too far removed from them ; 
the mistakes of Moses are manifest; they will swear by 
Ingersoll, they will follow his advice, they will enjoy life, 
pleasure shall be their god, and a good time they demand. 
They surge around some one whom they make their Aaron 
to provide for their wants, to open up for them a drinking 
rendezvous. He perhaps feels at first some compunctions of 
conscience as to the business, but he concludes that the 
drinkers are to blame. They are determined to have stimu- 
lants, and if he does not furnish these, others will. If they 
can not get what they want in a legalized place, they will get 
it surreptitiously; if not of the open dealer, of the secret 
and sneak seller. The representative of the saloon thinks 
that he might as well have the profit. He receives a license 
that has been voted. He invites the masses to bring on their 
money, their gold, and they do in great quantities. They 
fetch it by nickels and by dimes, and it soon accumulates 
to be a large bulk. Aaron has enough for a golden calf, 
the saloon-keeper has a handsome property. Suggest to the 
vender of liquid damnation that what is acquired by such 
an unholy traffic has a good deal of the appearance of a 
big golden calf, and he protests. People will drink, say 
members of the craft, and though we sometimes tell them 
plainly that there is nothing better than pure, sparkling 



GOLDEN CALVES 

water, than "Adam's ale" which comes bubbling out of the 
ground, they yet do demand something stronger. We ac- 
cordingly say, Very well, that is for you to decide. We take 
their money, cast it into the drawer, and the result is a nice 
property, which is none other than a golden calf, that ought 
now as of yore to be ground to powder, and strewed upon 
the water. That is the water cure that is needed. 

But apologies for the saloon continue to be made. The 
truckling politician especially sees there votes to be gotten. 
He seeks elevation through a dishonorable ballot. He often 
feels that by such means the trick can be turned to the gain- 
ing of his selfish ambition. He makes the mistake of the 
little girl, who announced to her mother that when she grew 
up, she was going to be a Duchess. When asked how she 
was going to effect that so easily, her prompt reply was, 
"By marrying a Dutchman." More than one, person wants 
to join his fortunes, for instance, with those of the baser 
Germans. By an alliance with the Dutch, he hopes to become, 
if not a Duchess, a Mayor or Governor. He should rather 
be as uncompromising as that intrepid Roman who came to 
the rescue of his countrymen, when they were about to pay 
a heavy tribute of gold to besieging Gauls. He objected, and 
said "that it was customary with the Romans to deliver their 
country with iron, not with gold." Our sentiment should 
be, No tribute of gold to the saloon by granting a license 
privilege, but the iron of "Thou shalt not" shall be rigidly 
applied. 

Sometimes it is sanctimoniously maintained that there 
is more drinking under prohibition than under license. Why, 
then, do not such claimants fight for the former rather than 
for the latter ? They, however, do not, and therein does their 
hypocrisy appear. Or taking another tack, they say that the 

[33] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

restrictive policy hurts business, depreciates property, and 
increases taxes. The speciousness of such arguing is ap- 
parent, but at the worst there would be gain. Even breweries 
could be turned to some use, perhaps into starch factories, 
for more starch is needed, if for no other reason^ to stiffen, as 
some one has said, the backbones of professed but very weak 
temperance people. If corn can not be profitably grown, as 
is sometimes averred, except for distilling purposes, except for 
getting people "corned," let the price of this product fall. 
What shall we do with our corn? thundered out a western 
politician, who was concerned along this line, and a farmer 
quietly answered, Feed it, raise more hogs and less hell. 
If worst comes to worst, grind to powder the calf of gold, let 
property be depreciated, and if need be wiped out, rather 
than jeopardize the welfare of society, rather than sink im- 
mortal souls down into the pit. The general good is to be 
consulted, with an ignoring of the, selfish interests of a few, 
who are thinking of larger rents, or the fabulous fortunes 
to be made, or of some other possible pecuniary gain. Law 
and order, morality and religion, and a Christian civilization 
outweigh the almighty dollar. 

3. Once more, Aaron's position is taken, not only by the 
drinker and seller, and their respective supporters, but also 
by the town, and the larger the city is, the more acute becomes 
the situation. The evil has its most virulent development 
at the large centers of population, and for a reason. There 
will be recalled what Alaric the Goth said to the Roman 
embassador, who had endeavored to stir pity in the barbarian 
because of the great numbers living in Rome. "The thicker 
the hay, the easier it is mowed," answered the savage, as he 
proceeded with his march for the destruction of the eternal 
city. That is why the cities specially attract our heartless 

[34] 



GOLDEN CALVES 

foe, more people are there to be destroyed. Alaric demanded 
as the condition of peace all the silver and gold of Rome, 
not part of the money there, but all; whereupon the citizens 
asked, "If such, King, are your demands, what do you 
intend to leave us?" The haughty and cruel reply was, 
1 ' Your lives. ' ' The modern Goths and Vandals do not propose 
to be, as merciful as that even, they take the lives also. 

A municipal government, then, is besieged, we will say, 
by a great multitude clamoring for the calf to be set up, and 
again and again the incorporated town will ' ' set it up " for all 
that are thirsty. The voters cast their ballots for license, and 
then try to make the thing seem right. People will drink, 
they say, and therefore the traffic might as well be licensed. 
Well, people will steal, and will kill, but we do not license 
thieves and murderers. Wrong can not he legitimately 
licensed. It is sometimes said, that we have no more right 
to interfere at all with the drinking of liquors, than of tea 
and coffee, but the cases are not analagous. Whenever an 
article in its sale becomes the chief cause of crime, it is 
removed from the list of things lawful. If tea and coffee 
should, as strong drink does, produce about three-fourths of 
all crimes committed, if they fired men to deeds of wicked- 
ness, as does alcohol, they also could be very properly 
proscribed and banished. 

While the beer and whiskey business may not be strictly 
right, it is often claimed to be essential to the material pros- 
perity of a place, and it must therefore be suffered as a kind 
of necessary evil. Where, however, the financial gain is may 
not be so evident. The license revenue, to be sure, is con- 
siderable, but invariably it is paying out many thousands of 
dollars to get back much less. It reminds one of Mark 
Twain's account of Henry Ward Beecher's farming, of which 

[35] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

this sample was given, according to the best of my recollection : 
The illustrious preacher bought the, original pig for $1.50, 
and fed him $40 worth of corn, and then sold him for about 
$9. This, said the humorist, was the only crop he ever 
made any money on. He lost on the corn, but he made $7.50 
on the animal. He did not mind this, because he never ex- 
pected to make anything on corn. And, any way it turned 
out, he had the excitement of raising the porker, whether 
he got the worth of him or not. 

That is the way it is with an organized community. 
They spend two or four hundred thousand dollars on the 
saloon, and they get back a revenue of a great many less 
thousand. They make something on the license, but they lose 
a great deal more on the outlay, and yet some do not mind 
that, since they have the excitement of much drunkenness, 
which seems to them a sign of civic life, but may we be saved 
from such lively times. They do not consider how far prefer- 
able it would be for the real business of a community to have 
what is expended in the saloons spent at stores, and put into 
banks, and into homes. At the greater resultant prosperity 
and increase of means and wealth, direct taxation could be 
afforded, if need be, for improvements. At any rate, if 
streets can be graded only by having humanity degraded; 
if we can have them paved only by having persons depraved, 
let us keep our imperfect highways, and our hope of a city 
whose streets are of gold. We can stand some inconvenience 
here rather than do that which shall endanger our prospect 
for the hereafter, for says the prophet Habakkuk, "Woe to 
him that buildeth a town with blood, and establisheth a city 
by iniquity," and, "Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor 
drink. ' ' 

And yet people in their corporate capacity will say, 

[36] 



GOLDEN CALVES 

We merely tolerate a business, which, we in reality hate, 
accepting the revenue which it brings, and with this our 
acquiescence the saloon-system grows, it must be confessed, 
and assumes enormous and wasteful proportion, "and there 
comes out this calf/' large and fat. Being hedged around very 
carefully with legal sanctions, it becomes the full-grown 
cow, from which the owner, the one directly interested, gets 
all the cream and butter, while the town or city for its pains 
is allowed only a little of the skimmed milk. The thing 
does not pay even on that basis, and Aaron is responsible 
for not putting his foot down and preventing the whole ne- 
farious business, and a community is accountable if through 
legal coddling and failure to vote no-license, there comes out 
the calf, there results a thriving, monstrous traffic that has 
not a solitary redeeming feature. For the sake of young 
men who would never become drinkers but for the open 
saloon tempting within, for the sake of wives who would no 
longer listen eagerly for the footsteps of husbands staggering 
to their homes in the still hours of the night, for the sake 
of innocent children who would have to live in want and 
wretchedness and abject fear, for the sake of the poor vic- 
tims themselves whom a vicious treating has led astray, for 
the sake of humanity and for God's sake, we should crush 
this abomination of desolation, grind it to powder and strew 
it upon the water, by casting our ballots at every opportunity 
overwhelmingly for God and home and native land. 

The uncompromising attitude that we should take will 
appear in two classical illustrations with which we close. 
Circe, who points a moral, was an enchantress dwelling in a 
palace embowered among trees. At the soft music and sweet 
singing which floated from within, and at the invitation of 
the fair proprietress herself, one-half the crew of Ulysses, 

[37] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

the old Grecian hero, entered the fairy-like place. The 
beautiful hostess served them with wine, and then touching 
them with her magic wand she turned them into swine, and 
shut them up in her sties. Their brave leader hastened to 
the rescue of his companions, he strode toward the palace, 
and when Circe would have metamorphosed him also, he 
rushed upon her with drawn sword, and demanded the release 
of those already in a miserable captivity. She fell upon her 
knees and begged for mercy, and she hastily let her victims 
go, to their great joy, as they were restored again into human 
beings. All honor to every Ulysses, who will show no quarter 
to the Circean saloon-system, which changes so many from 
men into swine to wallow in filth. 

Then there is the fable of a ship long bearing every year 
from Greece to Crete a tribute of young men and maidens to 
be devoured by the Minotaur, that monster which was half 
man and half bull, worse than the Scriptural "bull of 
Bashan." The vessel with its human victims was sent on 
its sad voyage, says Plutarch, "with a black sail, as to un- 
avoidable destruction." But at last the heroic Theseus, tak- 
ing charge of the expedition, and confident of success, "gave 
the pilot another sail, which was white.'' Victory thus sym- 
bolized did come, and Athens rejoiced in the deliverance 
from the horrid creature, which annually had taken its full 
quota of the young of the land. There is a modern Minotaur, 
the goring ox of Scripture, and we have long enough gone 
forth to it in a despairing attitude, with a black flag, as if it 
must continue to exist, as if just so many of our youth must 
be yielded up to it every year. We should raise the white 
standard of assured triumph, with "the sword of the Lord 
and of Gideon," our courage rising with danger, and we 
shall not be disappointed. The monstrous saloon-system shall 

[38] 



GOLDEN CALVES 

be overcome, and the young shall be safe from its jaws of 
death and its mouth of hell. 

Into this happy position our own country has already 
come with the establishment of national prohibition on Janu- 
ary 16, 1920, from which there is not to be any permanent 
reaction but rather an increasing stability in the new order 
of things, while the whole world is destined eventually to 
share in the blessing of a greater sobriety and of greater 
industrial and intellectual and moral attainments. We should 
steadily fight all efforts that doubtless will be made for the 
overthrow of what we have gained along this line, and we 
should set our faces like flint for the extension of the good 
cause around the globe. 



[39] 



CHAPTER IV 
Holiday, Workaday, Holy Day 

WE ARE concerning ourselves for the moral order of 
the world. We are trying to fix human responsibility 
therefor. We are to enter upon a discussion of an institution, 
which is very influential in the right direction. Disraeli once 
said that the weekly rest-day was the corner-stone of our 
civilization. If this be true, we have come to a most vital 
matter for consideration. The question is, Shall we have 
a holiday, a workaday or a holy day ? 

1. Our first point will be as to the particular day to be 
observed. With the establishment of Christianity, the Jewish 
Sabbath (our Saturday) no longer had binding force, being 
superseded by Sunday, the Christian Sabbath. The change 
was a thing of growth rather than the result of positive 
enactment, but the day was changed all the same, and of this 
we have abundant proof. Even in the New Testament we 
see the first day of the week rather than the seventh assuming 
a sacred character. It was then that Christ appeared to his 
disciples, first on the evening of the resurrection, and again 
just a week from that night. "Upon the first day of the 
week," the Corinthians were exhorted to make their benevo- 
lent offerings, and the same plan for making contributions 
was submitted to the churches in Galatia and Macedonia. It 
was "upon the first day of the week," as we learn from the 
Acts, that Paul preached to the assembled disciples at Troas. 

[40] 



HOLIDAY, WORKADAY, HOLY DAY 

The testimony of the early fathers, too, is unequivocal. 
Justin Martyr (about 150 A. D.) says that Christians met 
for worship "on Sunday/' Tertullian some fifty years later 
says, "We celebrate Sunday." Clement of Alexandria, who 
died not far from 215 A. D., speaks of the observance of "the 
Lord's Day," because, he adds, of "the resurrection of the 
Lord which took place on that day." Eusebius, the eccles- 
iastical historian, who died about 340 A. D., writes that the 
usual duties of the Sabbath "we have transferred to the 
Lord's Day as more appropriately belonging to it, because it 
has the precedence, and is first in rank, and more honorable 
than the Jewish Sabbath." 

Converts from Judaism, however, at the outset kept 
Saturday also, and some times they tried to force it upon 
all. That is what Paul would seem to have condemned in his 
epistle to the Colossians, "Let no man therefore judge you," 
he said, in respect to "a sabbath day." He seems to have 
meant, that the keeping of Saturday (for Sabbath never 
signifies Sunday in the Bible) was optional. If the Jewish 
Christians chose to observe the old Sabbath, there was no 
objection to it, just as there was none to their being circum- 
cised, but they were not to insist upon others adopting their 
notions. Paul's sentiment was evidently adverse to keeping 
Saturday at all, and the general drift of opinion in the early 
centuries was in the same direction. But for some four 
hundred years there were those who could not give up the 
old Sabbath. Theodoret of the beginning of the fifth century, 
writing of the Ebionites says, "They keep the sabbath 
according to Jewish law, and sanctify the Lord's day in like 
manner as we do." But this double observance was not ap- 
proved by the majority, for as early as 350 A. D. the Council 
of Laodicea declared: "Christians ought not to act as Jews, 

[4i] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

and rest from labor on the sabbath (Saturday), but should 
work on that day, and giving pre-eminent honor to the Lord's 
day, they ought then, if they can, to rest from labor." Thus 
the observers of Saturday dwindled in number from gener- 
ation to generation, although there are a few such even yet. 
In other words, Sunday by no "explicit ordinance," as Pro- 
fessor Fisher of Yale said, but naturally and gradually (and 
none the less authoritatively on that account) came, on account 
of apostolic sanction, to be exclusively the Christian's Sab- 
bath. Still, it was not till modern times called Sabbath, but 
Sunday, which is of heathen derivation, meaning the day of 
the sun, that luminary having been an object of pagan wor- 
ship. But the name can also be used to commemorate the 
rising of the Sun of righteousness. It was also anciently 
called the Lord's day, which is of New Testament origin, for 
John in the Revelation speaks of being ' ' in the Spirit on the 
Lord's day." It was likewise frequently designated as "the 
first day," which the Friends have adopted on Scriptural 
authority, while the United Presbyterians still cling to the 
Biblical term of the Sabbath as the most fitting. Relatively 
more important, however, than a discussion of these variations 
is the keeping of the day holy. 

2. We come next to the right method of its observance. 
Two extremes are to be avoided. We must not make the day, 
as Christ says the Pharisees did, one * ' grievous to be borne. ' ' 
They, for instance, forbade the eating of eggs laid on the 
Sabbath, for domestic fowls should not work on that sacred 
day. One could not walk on the grass, for if any seeds were 
trodden out, that would be threshing. He must not grasp at 
a biting flea, for that would be hunting, even if the game was 
not caught. Women were forbidden to look into a mirror 
on the Sabbath, for they might detect a white hair and pro- 

[42] 



HOLIDAY, WORKADAY, HOLY DAY 

ceed to pull it out (as they very likely would), and that 
would be laboring in violation of the fourth commandment. 
Those ancient sticklers on small points tithed mint and cum- 
min, and anise, they were scrupulous about minor things, 
they made much ado about the plucking of the ears of corn 
to satisfy the cravings of hunger, but they neglected the 
weightier matters of the law. That was the sort of thing, the 
merely punctilious to the extent of the burdensome even, 
which the Master denounced, when he made his historic 
utterance, ' ' The sabbath was made for man, and not man for 
the sabbath. " That was never designed to encourage the 
license, for which it is now frequently quoted, but it was 
intended to condemn such Pharasaic strictures as have just 
been indicated. 

There can be too great restrictions yet. Some of the 
present generation can remember, when they were not al- 
lowed to laugh aloud on the holy day. Nor could they 
whistle or play an instrument, no matter how religious the 
tune might be. A smile was reproved as partaking of the 
nature of levity, when there should be only seriousness. The 
day was made intolerable, as it was to that boy, who said 
he did not care to go to heaven where his grandfather was, 
because the dear old man with a mistaken zeal would be 
always saying, "Tut, tut!" There may be petty restraints 
which are irksome and useless. The early Puritans sometimes 
went to an extreme in enforcing these. Their strictness gave 
rise to that familiar and facetious statement of the English 
historian, namely, "The Puritan hated bear-bating, not be- 
cause it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure 
to the spectators." While there may have been some basis 
for that famous quip, there is no danger now of an excessive 
puritanism. 

[43] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

We are drifting to the other extreme, and we seem to 
be adopting the Continental Sabbath. It is interesting to 
observe how the holiday idea of the Continent of Europe, 
even where Protestantism prevails, originated. In the multi- 
plicity of sacred days imposed by the Roman Church on the 
world, Sunday lost its special sacredness; it came to be 
looked upon as only one of many holy days, and Protestants 
naturally rejected it along with the rest. Their course was 
a reaction against ecclesiastical authority, and hence Luther 
says of the day as imposed from without, "If anywhere any 
one sets up its observance upon a Jewish foundation, then 
I order you to work on it, to ride on it, to dance on it, to feast 
on it, to do anything that shall remove this encroachment on 
the Christian spirit and liberty/' Other Reformers on the 
Continent shared this feeling. Their undoubted piety kept 
them from acting upon such views, but when, to quote from 
another, "the Reformation began to subside, those who had 
accepted their doctrines without imbibing their deep religious 
and devotional spirit'' did put the theories into practice, 
and the result has been what is known as the Continental 
Sabbath. In Germany, accordingly, except among the more 
evangelical who have caught the deeper spirit of Luther, 
except among those who show themselves to be true Lutherans 
in advocating a Sunday for worship rather than for recreation 
— except among such in the German fatherland we see the 
looser conceptions regarding the Sabbath too largely prevail- 
ing, as the multitudes proceed to carry out Luther's ap- 
parently plain injunction to work, ride, dance and feast on 
the Lord's Day. The great Reformer, who was simply mak- 
ing a strong, rhetorical protest against the imposition of 
ecclesiastical authority upon the individual conscience, never 
meant his words to apply strictly to every-day human conduct 

[44] 



HOLIDAY, WORKADAY, HOLY DAY 

from week to week and from year to year, any more than 
the Master intended his similarly emphatic language to be 
taken literally when he bade us to hate father and mother. 
If in Protestant Germany there is an undue liberty of practice 
in this matter, where Catholicism has sway there is still 
greater freedom. France has her horse racing on the Sabbath, 
and Spain has her bull fights. It is toward this laxity that 
we seem to be tending in this country, with our increasing 
desecrations of the Lord's Day. 

There is a better way, choosing the golden mean between 
Pharasaic or, as the expression now is, Puritanic rigidness 
and European looseness in what may be designated as the 
Anglo-American Sabbath, which is marked by its quietness. 
The hum of industry ceases, places of business and of amuse- 
ment are closed, and streets are alive with people on their 
way to the sanctuary. This is the resting which is according 
to the commandment. If we would not see the day of hallowed 
influence lost, the spirit of revelry crowding out that of re- 
ligion, places of recreation superseding houses of worship, 
we must guard against present tendencies. Even some pro- 
fessed believers are too disposed to drift with the tide. 
Whatever may be said of automobile riding, it certainly 
should not be allowed to interfere with the duty and privilege 
of public worship. Joining a throng for an electric-car or 
any other excursion is not what we can so much as imagine 
that Jesus would do, and we ought not to do any thing 
which would not be following u in his steps." We can not 
by the wildest stretch of fancy conceive of Him going to a 
park or a lakeside for a band concert and for the general 
gayety prevailing in such a resort. Nor is it keeping the 
day holy to clean up one's grounds or to work in the garden. 
The "man with the hoe" on Sunday is neither poetic nor 

[45] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

religions. Anything of that kind is not presenting the 
right front to the world. It is not setting a right example 
for children. The Master likewise would surely have us 
adopt some other day than his for purely social functions, 
whereby groups are gathered together for good cheer and 
even hilarity. There is not apt to be on such occasions the 
desired religious atmosphere. Nor is the preparation of 
school lessons on the day set apart for the spiritual to be 
commended. We do not have any too much time for the 
sacred, that we should let it be trenched upon by the secular. 
We need every seventh day to be lifted out of the ordinary, 
and we need to tread the high levels of communion with the 
divine. 

But we can not specify farther, only suggesting that 
where there is a question in one's mind, he should always 
determine his course of action after reading the last two 
verses of the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, ever squaring 
his conduct by the principles there laid down, "not doing 
thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking 
thine own words." We should cry a halt on liberalistic 
practice. That was a noble stand taken by Ex-President 
Grant when in his tour around the world the French Marshal 
invited him to attend the public races on Sunday afternoon, 
and the hero soldier declined. All honor to the Queen of 
Madagascar, who, when informed that the representatives of 
two European powers "would do themselves the honor to 
call upon her on the following sabbath/' politely gave them 
to understand that she could not see them till Monday. It 
was a telling rebuke coming from an island so lately reclaimed 
from heathenism, and administered to countries nominally 
Christian for centuries. Christians now would do well to 
follow these illustrious examples. A certain toning up of 

[46] 



HOLIDAY, WORKADAY, HOLY DAY 

conduct would seem desirable in these times of a general 
relaxation. 

That ideal American, Theodore Roosevelt, who since his 
death has been almost canonized by public sentiment, never 
let anything interfere with his habitual attendance upon 
public worship. Very significantly he said, "I know that 
one can worship the Creator and dedicate one's self to good 
living in a grove of trees, or by a running brook, or in one's 
own house just as well as in church. But I also know as 
a matter of cold fact that the average man does not thus 
worship or thus dedicate himself." Moreover, while he was 
accustomed to take long tramps on Sunday (as the Lord 
and his disciples walked through cornfields,) he conscien- 
tiously and rightly abstained from all sports as out of 
harmony with the sacredness of the day. 

3. We proceed to the specific advantage of Sabbath 
observance. We are only asked to do what is for our 
own benefit, that says a prophet, we may "ride upon the high 
places of the earth. ' ' Gladstone said, ' ' From a moral, social, 
and physical point of view, the observance of Sunday is a 
duty of absolute consequence," and as to himself personally 
he added, "I owe my health and vigor, through a long and 
busy life, to the Sabbath day, with its blessed surcease of 
toil." Scientists claim that even machinery needs time to 
recover, so to speak, its equilibrium. Let it play incessantly, 
and the particles of steel feel the strain, giving way at last 
just as an overworked man or beast does. Certainly when it 
comes to the human frame and to the faculties of the mind, 
unceasing toil is injurious. Said an eminent French political 
economist, "Let us observe Sunday in the name of hygiene, 
if not in the name of religion. ' ' Six hundred and forty phys- 
icians of London once in a petition to the British Parliament 

[47] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

maintained that a seventh day of rest was "essential to the 
bodily health and mental vigor of men in every station of 
life." To be sure, in the tremendous activities of to-day, 
it seems as if we must use all the time at our disposal, but 
thus to overtask our powers is a loss in the long run. Those 
four hundred and fifty engineers on the New York Central 
Lines knew whereof they spake, when a few years ago they 
petitioned Vanderbilt for a cessation or at least a lessening of 
Sunday traffic. "This never-ending toil," they said, "ruins 
our health/' and they declared that the brain was not so 
clear as it would be with less laborious duties, and here may 
be the reason for some of our railroad disasters. "We do 
not hesitate to say," they continued, "that we can do as 
much work in six days, with the seventh for rest, as is now 
done." 

While modern civilization, with the changed conditions 
when every family does not keep its own team, may require 
more or less railroad and trolley traffic, and while an electric 
car carrying seventy passengers requires only two men to 
operate it as against one coachman for only four in a car- 
riage, and while many under any circumstances, especially in 
our complicated life, must be employed on Sunday, they 
should not be forced to labor continuously. Every person 
should be relieved of exacting tasks one day in seven. There 
will be only gain from such relief. Lord Macaulay, who 
spoke not as a clergyman but as a statesman and historian, 
once gave expression to these memorable words: "For my 
part I have not the smallest doubt, that if we and our ances- 
tors had during the last three centuries worked just as hard 
on the Sundays as on the week-days, we should have been at 
this moment a poorer people, a less civilized people than we 
are." "Of course," he adds, "I do not mean to say that a 

[48] 



HOLIDAY, WORKADAY, HOLY DAY 

man will not produce more in a week by working seven days 
than by working six days; but I very much doubt whether 
at the end of a year he will have produced more." "The 
day," he goes on to say, "is not lost. While industry is 
suspended, while the plow lies in the furrow, while the 
exchange is silent, while no smoke ascends from the factory, 
a process is going on, quite as important to the wealth of 
nations as any process which is performed on more busy 
days." 

Not only from the standpoint of economics, but from the 
humanitarian point of view it is the same. Take workmen, 
and the one day at home for them is worth a great deal. There 
is much truth in the familiar lines : 

"Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail the poor man's day! 

On other days the man of toil is doomed 

To eat his joyless bread lonely; 

But on this day, embosomed in his home, 

He shares the frugal meal with those he loves. ' ' 

The Sabbath breaks up the dull monotony of his existence. The 
day, says the judicial Blackstone, "humanizes . . . the manners 
of the lower classes." To the commercial and professional 
community as well, Sunday comes like a sweet benediction. 
In the whirl and rush of modern life, men have little time 
at home; they have to let the domestic and the affectional 
suffer, except as the Lord's day affords an opportunity for 
their development. 

And surely the laboring masses, in whose behalf greater 
relaxation is often urged, should see to it that the day is 
kept holy, for once destroy its sanctity, and it is gone alto- 
gether. An American clergyman, who spent several years 

[49] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

abroad, and who was a close observer of the Continental 
Sabbath, said: "Some of these fine days, as business grows 
brisk, you will get back from your Sunday excursion, . . . and 
find a notice that next Sunday owing to the pressure of 
business, the factory will run, or the shop will open, and 
that you are wanted for a day's work. And if you think 
that then you will be able to plead, for your rest and liberty, 
the very statute you have broken for your amusement, you 
will have ample time and opportunity to find out your mis- 
take. " In other words, if we would have a day of rest, we 
must not by our conduct break down the public sentiment 
which guards that day as sacred. If it is not wrong to 
respond to the whistle for excursion by boat or rail, it is not 
wrong to respond to whistle that calls to factory or shop. 
The danger is that more and more may be practically forced 
into Sunday labor, if the Anglo-American idea yields to the 
Continental. We can not compromise on this question. If 
we are to have a Sabbath at all, we must have it in its entire- 
ness, and it certainly is needed for overworked men and 
women. Actors, even, do not deserve to be driven into service 
seven days in the week for the mere amusement of already 
surfeited hearers, their strength and health being sacrificed 
to make a "Roman holiday," or an American. On humani- 
tarian grounds, we should preserve for the good of all the 
weekly rest-day. 

We likewise need it for its moral advantage. Wherever 
the day is sacredly observed, there society is at its best. We 
see the difference as to morals between a church-going and 
a pleasure-going portion of any city. Travellers speak of it 
in comparing such countries as England and France. Between 
the capitals of these two great nations, there formerly at least 
was a very great contrast, though now they may be becoming 

[50] 



HOLIDAY, WORKADAY, HOLY DAY 

too much alike. A Frenchman, who can not be said generally 
to be prejudiced in favor of the Englishman, has used this 
language: "Men are surprised sometimes," said a French 
Count of a former generation, "by the ease with which the 
immense city of London is kept in order by a garrison of 
three small battalions and two squadrons; while to control 
the capital of France which is half the size, forty thousand 
troops of the line and sixty thousand national guards are 
necessary. But/ 7 he continues, "the stranger who arrives in 
London on a Sunday morning, when he sees every thing of 
commerce suspended in that gigantic capital in obedience to 
God; when in the center of that colossal business he finds 
silence and repose scarcely interrupted by the bells which call 
to prayer, and by the immense crowds on their way to church, 
— then his astonishment ceases. He understands that there 
is another curb for a Christian people besides that made by 
bayonets. ' ' 

The Frenchman was right ; the Sabbath is invaluable for 
this curbing influence; and it has a positive value as well, 
it tones up a community ethically, it arrests a natural tendency 
downward, and gives a moral uplift. Robert Collyer on 
leaving Chicago for New York confessed his mistake in sug- 
gesting during his early ministry that people might worship 
God as acceptably in their homes and in the fields and in 
the woods, and in the mountains and by the seashore, as in 
the sanctuary. "The drift of it all," he said, was to "slay 
faith, and to touch with paralysis the nerve of any great 
endeavor. ' ' Teachings, which their propagators now acknowl- 
edge to have been erroneous, have this paralyzing effect. For 
its moral advantage, then, we need the Sabbath, with line 
upon line and precept upon precept in holy temple. We need 

[5i] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

to turn away busy feet from the holy ground of the Lord's 
day, not treading it irreverently in the dust. 

If the institution, for which we are pleading, is not 
preserved, the habit of worship will perish sooner or later, 
and that would be an irreparable loss. Former United 
States Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, a prominent Unitarian, 
once said: "We best maintain the country we love and the 
state of which we are a part, and of whose government we 
have our share of personal responsibility, by a constant at- 
tendance on the public and social worship of God. I believe 
it to be to the interest of the country, of the town, and of the 
individual soul, that the habit be not abandoned." Similarly 
has spoken President Woodrow Wilson: "It has always 
seemed to me that the habit of church-going somehow lay 
at the foundation of steadfast character and maintenance of 
the standards of life. ' ' 

The pressure of pleasure and of business on sacred time 
needs to be strenuously resisted. We all need very much 
more of composure, not yielding to what seems to be the 
exigencies of the moment. We should manifest more of the 
sturdiness of character revealed in the Scotchman, of whom 
the historian Froude relates a characteristic anecdote. It was 
the hour of family worship, and the old Highland patriarch 
was adjusting his spectacles preparatory to reading a chapter 
of Scripture, when a workman rushed into the room with the 
startling news, that the shocks of grain would be blown into 
the sea by a sudden and strong wind which had risen, unless 
all went immediately to the rescue. "Wind?" calmly replied 
the Scotchman, "Wind canna get ae straw that has been 
appointed mine. Sit doon, and let us worship God." Many 
are afraid that something or somebody will get a straw or a 
little trade from them and accordingly they can not take time 

[52] 



HOLIDAY, WORKADAY, HOLY DAY 

to quiet their spirits in holy temple even on the Sabbath. 
They must keep a close watch of business, they must stay 
at home Or get some necessary recreation on the Lord's day, 
neglecting the sanctuary and their higher interests, in order 
to rest up and get in good trim for another week's work in 
distancing all competitors. They forget what their great 
Exemplar did: "He came to Nazareth where he had been 
brought up, and entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue 
on the sabbath day." That is, he had the habit of worship, 
of going to church regularly, and we should have. The op- 
posite tendencies here should be checked, as we take a resolute 
stand for a holy day, as against either a holiday or a 
workaday. 

There is needed, as Erasmus once expressed it, more of 
the stuff of which martyrs are made, so that we will do right 
at all hazards. We should have more of "the pulp and 
brawn" of our New England ancestors. When in 1620 the 
Pilgrims drew near this new country, it was in the face of a 
driving storm of snow and sleet. Their mast was broken, 
their sails were torn to shreds. They anchored at Clark's 
Island Friday night. Saturday the sun shone out, but not 
soon enough, they feared, to give them time to sail across 
the intervening water and get established on the mainland 
before the Sabbath began, and therefore they stayed where 
they were, right in sight of the shore and of Plymouth 
Rock, rather than run the risk even of breaking the fourth 
commandment. That showed sturdy principle. That was 
the pulp and brawn out of which has been developed the 
massive New England type of character that has been a 
bulwark of civilization, and that has been the admiration of 
the world. 



[S3] 



CHAPTER V 

Ostrich Nurture 

rf^HERE is nothing which contributes so much to a health- 
JL ful moral order as a rightly-conducted home. There 
largely is to be determined the character of a nation's future 
citizenship. Christian nurture by serious-minded parents 
is what is to count. The absence of this is indicated by Job 
in a very picturesque manner, when he says : 

i ' The wings of the ostrich wave proudly ; 

But are they the pinions and plumage of love? 
For she leaveth her eggs on the earth, 
And warmeth them in the dust, 
And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, 
Or that the wild beast may trample them. 
She dealeth hardly with her young ones, as if they were 
not hers." 

That is a very striking description of a proud but heartless 
creature. She may well rejoice in her plumes, for they com- 
mand a great price and are the admiration of cultivated 
ladies. They also enable her to run very swiftly, as out- 
spread to the breeze they act like sails to carry the splendid 
bird over the desert. The patriarch doubtless spoke as an 
eye-witness of her rapid movement, half running and half 
flying, when he said farther of her, 

[54] 



OSTRICH NURTURE 

"What time she lifteth up herself on high, 
She scorneth the horse and his rider. ' ' 

But there was this against her, that she did not brood over 
her eggs with the instinct of affectionate motherhood, she 
rather left them to be hatched by the sun. We are informed 
by ornithologists, that she does practice incubation except 
in the tropical climate. There she simply makes a nest in 
the sand, and while she or her mate sits warming her eggs 
by night, in the day she leaves them to the solar heat as all- 
sufficient. She forgets that while the sun may hatch them, 
they are left unprotected, and may be crushed by the foot 
of the hunter, or may be trampled and destroyed by the wild 
beast. She ought continually to brood over them, and guard 
them so far as she can against these dangers. She would 
do this, it is intimated, were hers "the pinions and plumage 
of love, ' ' and did she not c ' deal hardly with her young ones. ' ' 
Now this little incident from natural history has for 
us a spiritual lesson. It speaks to us of "home, sweet home/' 
which John Howard Payne has enthroned as a song in the 
hearts of humanity. The American government recognized 
the importance of the sentiment therein set forth by the 
tender care which it finally gave to the ashes of its author. 
After his body had lain for years in a foreign land wherein 
he had served as consul, the nation at last awoke to its duty, 
sent a ship to convey the disinterred remains to his native 
country, and in Washington gave them an impressive re- 
burial, while statesmen and dignitaries of every sort were 
present to honor the man, who had exalted the home. Union 
College, his Alma Mater, has singled him out for a special 
honor, though numbering among her distinguished sons such 
celebrities as William M. Seward, President Lincoln's 

[55] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

Secretary of State, and Chester A. Arthur, twenty-first 
President of the United States, and Daniel Lamont, 
Secretary of War in President Cleveland's cabinet. The 
College erected for this particular alumnus a lasting 
memorial in the Payne Gate, which will admit ambitious 
students for successive generations to the fair campus and 
to the Jackson garden with its sweet seclusions and to the 
spacious and beautiful grounds with their stately trees and 
classic shades. Now in the home, whose importance our 
country and a historic college have recognized by official 
acts, there should be no ostrich nurture. 

And first, we note the earliest period of human exist- 
ence. Oliver Wendell Holmes said that a child's education 
began a hundred years before he was born. There is much 
truth in this statement, that much in our make-up is in- 
herited. Not only physical characteristics, but mental traits 
and spiritual dispositions are transmitted. The second 
President Dwight of Yale, on being asked to write a maga- 
zine article on the forces that had contributed to his making, 
said for substance that he had seen to it first of all that he 
was born right, and then he paid an appreciative tribute to 
his mother. There ought to be, therefore, favorable em- 
bryonic conditions even. The prenatal state of mind has a 
tremendous influence, poisoning or quickening that which is 
yet unborn. Horace Bushnell well spoke of the " fatal mis- 
chief" done when one "submits to the maternal office and 
charge, as to some hard necessity. This charge is going to 
detain her at home, and limit her freedom. Or it will take 
her away from the shows and pleasures for which she is liv- 
ing. Or it will burden her days and nights with cares that 
weary her self-indulgence. Or she is not fond of children, 
and never means to be fond of them." The rebelliousness 

[56] 



OSTRICH NURTURE 

thus depicted by the distinguished preacher must make its 
impress as on plastic clay. Such a one is not the Scriptural 
"joyful mother of children," but she is the ostrich "dealing 
hardly with her young ones." She may rejoice in dress and 
finery, in brilliant plumes that adorn her person, but are hers 
"the pinions and plumage of love?" The answer must be 
in the negative. 

Over against a reluctant motherhood, place Hannah 
with her child of prayer, and one can understand why all 
holy affections blossomed in Samuel from the very outset. 
He was the beautiful fruitage of a devout and longing soul. 
When a child has thus been properly born, he next should 
find himself surrounded by the right sort of atmosphere, 
which he will feel, even before the days of real conscious- 
ness. And here a consecrated fatherhood, as well as a true 
motherhood, will be potential. Let there be on both sides 
the higher aspirations, and not the carelessness and in- 
difference of the ostrich, which has no gently brooding affec- 
tion, which is fleet and strong of wing to be sure, but which 
has not the plumage that is as softly caressing as down. 

On young childhood immense influence is almost uncon- 
sciously exercised by a warm, genial, spiritual atmosphere. 
Sometimes, as indicating how little influence (it is alleged) 
favoring domestic surroundings with their supposedly silent 
and steady pressure have, the sons of deacons or of promi- 
nent church-members, and especially of ministers, are in- 
stanced. But there is a wide-spread misapprehension as to 
the facts here. It has been left to a French sceptic to give 
the proper credit (to specify only one class) to the sons of 
clergymen. Not only do they very frequently follow in the 
footsteps of their fathers by becoming ministers themselves, 
but they become eminent along various lines. For two 

[57] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

hundred years, clerical families, an enemy being judge and 
authority, have given more celebrated scientists to the world 
than any other profession, not excepting the scientific itself. 
Encke the astronomer and Agassiz the naturalist are of this 
class. Among historians, the sons of pastors claim Hallam, 
Macaulay, Bancroft, and among Presidents of the United 
States such recent examples as Grover Cleveland and 
"Woodrow Wilson. Poets, too, have come from this source, 
Cowper, Coleridge, Tennyson, Lowell. Novelists, like 
Thackeray, and others in every sphere of human achieve- 
ment, are indebted for their eminence to the clergy, with 
(to quote from the infidel but frank Frenchman) " their 
counsels to their children, the absence of various causes of 
dissipation, the habitual vigilance of the father, and his 
domestic example of study, surpassing the advantages of 
other families,' ' and giving "all the greater force to the 
transmission of faculties." Such is the judgment of De 
Candolle, a writer who has investigated the subject, and who 
has tabulated and published the results, thus refuting the 
slander, that usually the sons of ministers turn out badly. 
There are of course exceptions to the rule, and if one goes 
astray, the circumstance is particularly noticed, attracting 
proportionately greater attention because of the godly 
parentage. 

Coming to the age of conscious existence, the respon- 
sibility increases. The opportunity of the home for the 
training of young lives is not sufficiently appreciated. There 
is nothing sweeter than a mother tenderly concerned for 
her children. Most share the indignation of Caesar, when 
he called attention to unworthy Roman women, who petted 
dogs rather than their own offspring. We blush with shame 

[S8] 



OSTRICH NURTURE 

for the mother now, who is guilty of similar folly. There is 
a story (which may not be altogether a fable) of a finely- 
dressed woman in her ostrich feathers flaunting along the 
street with ribbon-bedecked poodle in her arms, and stopping 
to kiss a lovely child whom a nurse was rolling along in his 
carriage. The little fellow asked the servant who that lady 
with the doggie was, the one who had just kissed him, and 
the nurse with astonishment and grief answered, "Why, that 
was your own dear mother. " The nurture of hired help is 
too apt to be that of the sands, whereas there is needed that 
of the maternal and of the paternal, of brooding wings. 

A servant may be conscientious and careful, after the 
manner of that one who looked after Washington Irving in 
childhood. He was named after the father of our country. 
When our first President was once in New York, a Scotch 
lassie followed the national hero into a shop, and presenting 
the child to him said, "Please, your honor, here's a bairn 
was named after you." He placed his great hand on the 
laddie 's head, and gave him his blessing, little realizing that 
he was letting his benediction fall on his future biographer. 
Washington Irving may have been stimulated by the recol- 
lection of that scene to write subsequently that charming life 
of the illustrious George Washington. At any rate, he must 
have appreciated the thoughtfulness of the servant, who 
sought for him the blessing of a great and good man. Too 
rarely now is there a maid, who has this sense of responsi- 
bility, and parents themselves must bring their children in 
connection with high ideals, or the service will not be done 
at all. 

Interest often does center largely in the home, and the 
little ones there do receive deserved attention, while also they 

[59] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

contribute to parental happiness. The merest trifles in con- 
nection with the unfolding young life are noted with pleas- 
ure. Charles Lamb in writing to Coleridge asked with refer- 
ence to the son Hartley that question of perennial interest, 
"And how go on the little rogue's teeth?" There is nothing 
like a child to stir true hearts with pure emotions, and if one 
is taken hence, his innocent and joyous "Good Night!" and 
"Happy Dreams!" are greatly missed. That is a touching 
scene in Dickens, where little Dorrit turned at the door to 
say, "God bless you!" The novelist adds, "She said it very 
softly ; but perhaps she may have been as audible above, — 
who knows? — as a whole cathedral choir." There are in 
childish voices with their well wishes and prayers the har- 
monies of heaven itself. We should not fail of getting this 
highest felicity by not appreciating till too late the joys 
within our own homes, and we should do our best to give 
religious nurture to those in whom are wrapped up eternal 
destinies. 

To that end family worship should be a familiar memory. 
We have all admired "The Cotter's Saturday Night" by 
Robert Burns, and we are fond of recalling it time and again. 
We see the Scotch laborer gathering his implements together 
on a Saturday afternoon, we see him "o'er the moor" seek- 
ing his humble cottage "beneath the shelter of an aged tree." 
We see the younger children flocking gladly around him on 
his return from the field, we see the older brothers and 
sisters coming from service among neighbors to spend the 
Sabbath at home, we see the mother contentedly plying her 
needle in the midst of her gleesome family, we see the cheer- 
ful supper table set. But best of all is it when they, as the 
poet says, 

[60] 



OSTRICH NURTURE 

"form a circle wide; 
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, 

The big ha' — Bible, ance his father's pride; 
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, 

He wails a portion with judicious care ; 
And, Let us worship God ! he says with solemn air. ' ' 

Burns well adds, 

"From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad." 

We cannot do better than to have this same spirit pervade 
our households. , This is what gives, not that ostrich nurture 
which leaves the young to the chances of the sands, to the 
uncertainties of a natural development, but a nurture that is 
distinctly religious. 

The Sabbath especially affords a rare opportunity for 
conveying serious impressions. We should make the day re- 
dolent of the spiritual, different from all the other days of 
of the week. Not that we should have the too rigidly austere, 
and the ascetic. We need not have the cold meals of our 
forefathers. Indeed there seems to be reason for having the 
table particularly well-furnished. It would seem that the 
Lord's Day, if any, should have the extras which are some- 
times allowable, for then all are more likely to be at home, 
and one's own, and not incoming friends, should have the 
best that can be afforded by the market and the purse. 
Plutarch tells us of an old Roman, who once supping alone 
at his villa on the Pincian Hill in Rome, and who being 
served with but one course and that not very good, called 
his steward, and rebuked him for the insufficient entertain- 

[61] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

ment. The chef's apology was that he knew no one had been 
invited to the meal, whereupon he received this reproof, 
' ' What! did you not know, then, that to-day Lucullus dines 
with Lucullus V 9 Because a family may gather without 
acquaintances around the table on Sunday, as it ordinarily 
should, there is only the greater cause for making a bounti- 
ful provision. An unnatural abstinence is not conducive to 
the sanctity and happiness of the day. 

Then the religious newspaper and books of a kindred 
nature can be reserved for the day of all the week the best. 
The ever-charming narratives of Holy Writ itself, with their 
moral lessons, can be made to do helpful service. After the 
manner of the game of authors, there are those that are 
Scriptural, whereby the books of the Bible can be learned 
as a pleasant pastime. In many such ways can the religious 
in the home be cultivated. If these are supplemented by the 
loving, personal talk, and by prayer for and with our beloved, 
no parent can be charged with being like the ostrich, which 
"dealeth hardly with her young ones." Sad enough it is 
when, after many excellent qualities are recounted in a 
woman, the question must be asked, but are hers "the 
pinions and plumage of love?" She may dress like a lady, 
she may wear all the splendid plumes of the ostrich, and yet 
be lacking in the finest of all endowments, brooding mother- 
hood, which with loving devotion looks after the everlasting 
welfare of those with whom she has been entrusted. The 
maternal alone, without the paternal, is well-nigh omnipo- 
tent. It was a mother's entreaties and prayers, which led 
the golden-mounted Chrysostom into the Christian life, and 
into the gospel ministry to become one of the great pulpit 
orators of history. The mother of Augustine (and one of the 
finest beaches of the Pacific in California bears her name, 

[62] 



OSTRICH NURTUEE 

Santa Monica) is equally famous for the love with which 
she followed her wayward son. She prayed and wept for 
him, till a bishop uttered these memorable words: "It is not 
possible that the son of these tears should perish. " And he 
did become one of the great Church Fathers, more than any 
other man inspiring Luther, and Calvin, and Knox, the lead- 
ing spirits of the Protestant Reformation. But while the 
maternal influence is thus powerful, it should be reinforced 
by the paternal. 

A father may plume himself on his other accomplish- 
ments. Politically, like the distinguished James G. Blaine 
who just failed of the Presidency itself, he may become a 
"plumed knight." He may become a recognized force in 
the field of literature. He may carry through colossal busi- 
ness enterprises. But however much he may plume himself 
on his secular successes, unless he does his part in the 
training of his children, unless he feels a deep solicitude for 
their highest well-being, and manifests the same by a very 
personal and spiritual interest in his sons and daughters, 
he has not adequately met his great responsibilities, and 
many are the young men and women who have suffered on 
this account, and who, if occasion arises, will solemnly give 
their testimony to that effect. When, on the contrary, there 
have been outstretched over them wings soft and caressing 
with an affection born of heaven, when there has been a 
tenderly solicitous love, maternal and paternal, there can be 
no charge of ostrich nurture, and parents at last will be able 
to say with profound satisfaction, Here, Lord, are we, and 
the children that were committed to our care. 

The whole contention of this chapter is for the old- 
fashioned family training. The contrast between the results 
flowing intellectually and morally from that rather than 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

from the happy-go-lucky spirit in the domestic circle is 
startlingly evidenced in the case of two American house- 
holds. In criminal records the Jukes are famous. Twelve 
hundred of these have descended from a shiftless ancestor, 
who himself was not a preeminently bad man, but who was 
simply irresponsible, who preferred to go a fishing on Sun- 
day rather than to go to church. Because of a lack of moral 
training, because the regenerative power of the gospel was 
not brought to bear upon this family of degenerates, they 
have cost the public in crime and pauperism a million and a 
quarter dollars. Only one of them ever owned his home, 
and with scarcely an exception they have been a disgrace to 
Christian civilization. Dr. A. E. Winship, prominent in 
educational circles, has traced the course of another family 
through the same period of about two hundred years, 
namely, that of Jonathan Edwards. With his mental and 
religious training that might be considered quite severe but 
entirely wholesome, and with this sort of discipline handed 
down, what have his descendants proved to be ? More than 
fifteen hundred of them have been more or less noted, and 
among them have been successful manufacturers and mer- 
chants, who have created wealth instead of being burdens in 
their respective communities. They have furnished judges 
and statesmen to the nation. Three hundred of them have 
been college graduates, and three of them have been Yale 
Presidents, the two Timothy Dwights and Theodore Dwight 
Woolsey. With such an impressive contrast, parents surely 
should feel the need of giving the right start, particularly in 
character, to their offspring, seeing that they have a thor- 
oughly Christian rather than an easy-going ostrich nurture. 



[«4] 



CHAPTER VI 

Half-Baked People 

IN DEALING with the moral order, we first considered 
the wide sweep of our subject. We then proceeded to 
treat our theme somewhat in detail from the national point 
of view, and from the standpoint of the right social environ- 
ment. We next saw the important part played in the matter 
by the Lord 's Day and by the Christian home. Coming to a 
still closer grip with our topic, we will see how people them- 
selves may be lacking in that character which is essential to 
the ideal moral order. We are to become more and more per- 
sonal in our applications. 

Napoleon the First once had a striking experience, which 
will open up the thought of this chapter. He was proposing 
to cook an omelet. The Empress was busy superintending, 
when he coming in unexpectedly, and seeing the silver sauce- 
pan and the melting butter thereon, said, "You making an 
omelet? You know nothing about it, I will show you how it 
is done." But when one side had been "done to a turn," 
and when he with an artistic flourish proceeded to turn the 
omelet, he awkwardly tossed it half-cooked out upon the 
floor. More than one man is only half-baked, and this is 
what the prophet Hosea meant when he said, "Ephraim is 
a cake not turned." The figure is taken from the culinary 
department of life, and the Master himself did not hesitate 
to employ metaphors borrowed from the kitchen. It was he 
who spoke of the leaven by which bread is raised, making it, 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

however, refer to "the teaching of the Pharisees and 
Sadducees." It was he who likened the kingdom of heaven 
"unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures 
of meal, till it was all leavened." He was accustomed to 
dignify the familiar and the commonplace. He did not make 
a great chasm between the religious and the domestic. He 
would not have questioned the propriety of the prophet's 
singular but apt illustration. Upon some heated surface, 
such was the idea, the prepared flour, the batter, bakes. If 
it is not turned, the upper side remains dough, and such a 
cake is anything but desirable. There are persons who do 
not let the spiritual heat do its entire work, they do not ex- 
pose themselves on both sides to the divine influence. 

1. We will see how this applies, first, to actions gov- 
erned by emotion rather than by principle. Sometimes the 
papers state that such and such a minister has converted so 
many, designating the number. There are too many of these 
conversions, with which Ood has little or nothing to do. The 
anecdote has been related of more than one clergyman, re- 
garding a drunkard staggering up to him, and, not being 
recognized after the lapse of years, remarking in astonish- 
ment, "Not know me? I was one of your converts at such 
and such a meeting and in such and such a place;" while 
the fitting reply was, "You look like some of my work; if 
the Lord had converted you, you would not be in your pres- 
ent condition." That is too often a sample of what the 
human alone accomplishes. The preacher may stir the sensi- 
bilities, but only the Almighty can change the heart. One 
may be touched on the side of his emotions, while his will 
has never been surrendered to God, and his Christianity is a 
matter of feeling and not of principle. The sinner may be 
reached on the emotional side of his nature, we get him pre- 

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HALF-BAKED PEOPLE 

pared to that extent, and then, instead of turning him over 
and developing a sense of duty and cultivating some prin- 
ciple in him, we land him into the church only half a Chris- 
tian. There are not a few, who at some time in their lives 
have been religiously moved, but who were, not soundly 
converted. They got sufficient religion to make them 
imagine that they know all about it, whereas they got just 
enough to spoil them, for they were never more than half- 
baked. They are unturned cakes, representing the best side 
neither of the world nor of Christianity. They are a poor 
mixture of raw dough and of burnt cake, of unsanctified 
nature and of perverted religion. 

Strong character is developed in him only who learns 
to act from a sense of duty. He is not carried about by 
every wind of doctrine. He is not swerved from the straight 
course of conduct by opposition that may be blowing a per- 
fect gale. He stands staunchly against the fiercest fires to 
which he may be subjected by trying providences. There is 
in ecclesiastical history a well-known example of a person 
who showed such sturdiness of character, that there was 
erected for him a splendid architectural memorial. Recall 
how the celebrated Escurial of Spain happened to be built, 
that massive convent-palace, that great cathedral, with its 
courts and fountains and columns and general magnificence. 
In the third century, Laurentius or St. Lawrence, a Roman 
Christian who had charge of the treasures of the church in 
the city on the Tiber, was ordered in a time of persecution to 
reveal them, whereupon he went forth from the magistrate, 
and soon returned with a motley company of the poor and the 
sick and the lame and the blind, whom he presented to the 
governor with the words, " These are our treasures." This 
being considered an insult, he was condemned to be roasted 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

alive on a gridiron, but he bore the torture with great forti- 
tude, and onlj said with a grim and pathetic humor, "I am 
done on this side, turn me over." The anniversary of this 
martyrdom was made a saint's day, and when upon it in the 
sixteenth century Philip the Second fought a successful 
battle, he gratefully erected the renowned Escurial near 
Madrid, in the from of a gridiron and in commemoration of 
so noble a saint. If when we are fairly roasted by some one, 
we can after a suitable interval say quietly, u Iam done on 
this side, turn me over, ' ' if when, as the Master says, we are 
smitten on one cheek, we offer the other also, that will be 
exemplifying a spirit, which can come from no merely 
emotional and superficial experience, but only from being 
invariably governed by stern and unwavering principle. 

2. A second application will be made to those who are 
sensitive and touchy rather than sweet and gracious. 
Ephraim of old failed in this respect, and deserved to be 
ridiculed the way she was. Isaiah speaking of a happy time 
to come said, "Ephraini shall not envy Judah, and Judah 
shall not vex Ephraim." Ephraim was envious; she must 
have her own way, or there was trouble. When the twelve 
tribes took possession of the land of promise, she stood at 
the head. She was assigned the central and choicest part 
of the country. Her territory was the most fertile and the 
best watered. She furnished the great leader, Joshua, who 
conquered Palestine. At the outset she had within her 
borders the religious and political capital at Shiloh. She 
felt her importance, and she would allow no other to take 
the initiative in any movement. She must always be con- 
sulted, before an enterprise was begun. 

When Gideon gained his great victory with his solitary 
three hundred men, Ephraim jealously said, "Why hast thou 

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HALF-BAKED PEOPLE 

served us thus, that thou calledst us not, when thou wentest 
to fight with Midian? And they did chide with him 
sharply." So says the sacred narrative, and Gideon had to 
smooth things over, he had to praise them up, and, referring 
to a creditable act of theirs, he said, wily man that he was, 
"What was I able to do in comparison of you?" He flat- 
tered them a little, and what was the result? "Then," we 
read in the inspired history, "their anger was abated toward 
him, when he had said that. ' ' Gideon was wise, but what a 
contemptible spirit Ephraim's was, always wanting to be 
noticed, always afraid that it was not sufficiently appreciated. 
Still later, when Jephthah presumed on one occasion to act 
independently of the Ephraimites, what was their attitude? 
They said unto him ," Wherefore passedst thou over to fight 
against the children of Ammon, and didst not call us to go 
with thee? we will burn thine house upon thee with fire." 
They were very easily offended, if they were not made a 
great deal of, if they were not handled just so carefully, as 
we say, with gloves. 

People of this sort can become exceedingly disagreeable. 
To use a common expression, they are very touchy. They 
become captious and querrulous. They are like General Bragg, 
of whom Grant tells us in his immortal Memoirs. The rebel 
officer temporarily held two positions. "As commander of the 
company he made a requisition upon the quartermaster, 
himself, for something he wanted. As quartermaster he 
declined to fill the requisition, and entered upon the back 
of it his reasons for so doing. As company com- 
mander he responded to this, urging that his requisition 
called for nothing but what he was entitled to, and that it 
was the duty of the quartermaster to fill it. As quarter- 
master he still persisted that he was right. In this condition 

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OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

of affairs Bragg referred the whole matter to the command- 
ing officer of the post." Thereupon he was thus reproved by 
his superior, "You have quarrelled with every officer in the 
army, and now you are quarrelling with yourself/' Equally 
difficult to please are some yet. They make themselves un- 
happy over very small things. They are constantly getting 
piqued because they are not socially or religiously appre- 
ciated. They are highly favored in the positions which they 
do occupy, in the estimation in which they are held, yet, as 
the jealous Haman said of Mordecai, all this availeth us 
nothing, so long as we see some one by whom we may have 
been slighted. They allow their whole life to be poisoned 
by a trifle, which they ought to overlook and forget. They 
are so easily miffed, that they get very little enjoyment out 
of existence, which yet abounds in blessings. 

They become bitter and misanthropic. There is danger 
lest the vexatious thing, lest the petty annoyance, put one 
out of sorts with all mankind. Shakespeare, borrowing from 
classical writers, with his deep knowledge of human nature 
makes Timon of Athens degenerate from a nobleman with 
generous impulses into a miserable misanthrope. This noted 
character of the fifth century before the Christian era did 
have some unfortunate experiences, as friends whom he had 
feasted and helped in his affluence refused to loan him a 
dollar in his adversity. One tried to bribe a servant to tell 
Timon. that he was not at home; another unluckily had 
made "a purchase the day before," and had thus used up all 
his surplus cash ; a third pretended to be displeased because 
he had not been asked "first/' and he did not propose to 
take third place anywhere, not even in the matter of favor- 
ing an old friend, and so he refused. All were very sorry in- 
deed that none of them could assist Timon in his extremity, 

[70] 



HALF-BAKED PEOPLE 

but he ought not, as a result to have lost all faith in every 
body. We rather sympathize with him, as he invited them 
all to that famous last feast, to which they eagerly came, 
supposing now that he had been playing a part in the loans 
he had sought. They were profuse enough in their humble 
apologies. "If you had but sent two hours before," one 
began to say, and the others followed with their explana- 
tions, but the host silenced each, and bade them gather for 
the meal, that consisted, one said in an undertone to another, 
exclusively of "covered dishes." which however on being 
uncovered were seen to be all full of hot water only, and 
this he dashed into the faces of the slick rascals, after whom 
he likewise threw the dishes, while he himself went forth to 
live the rest of his days in a cave, as he said, according to our 
great dramatist, 

"Henceforth hated be 
Of Timon man and all humanity ! ' ' 

Over his very tombstone after his death appeared these lines 
of his own writing, 

"Here lie I, Timon; who alive all living men did hate. 
Pass by, and curse thy fill ; but pass, and stay not here 
thy gait." 

In business contact with all kinds of people, men need 
to strive against developing a like misanthropic spirit. They 
will find many aggravating things coming up, that will sour 
the disposition, unless this is rigidly guarded against. They 
can let the whole day be spoiled by one disagreeable cus- 
tomer. They may be succeeding commercially, but instead 

[71] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

of being thankful therefor and happy over their prosperity, 
they chafe and fret over some little trying experience which 
they may have had. They forget all about the genial and 
considerate persons with whom they have had dealings, and 
they keep harping upon the meaness of some one anomalous 
individual unworthy of being permitted thus to disturb the 
serenity of their life. Every merchant, every manufacturer, 
every professional man, should dwell upon the success which 
he has and upon the abundance that is his, rather than upon 
what may be of an irritating nature, and yet is exceptional. 
Sweetness rather than sensitiveness of spirit is what needs 
cultivating, if we would not become a cake unturned, good 
on one side but wholly bad on the other, and if we would 
avoid Ephraim 's fate. 

Swayed as she was by an unworthy pettishness, she 
went from bad to worse, slowly but none the less surely. 
She lorded it over the other tribes for some four hundred 
years, she retained her preeminence for that length of time, 
till Judah became her rival, and when the latter tribe gave 
a king to the nation in David, and when he removed the 
seat of government from Ephraim to Judah, from Shiloh to 
Jerusalem, there was great dissatisfaction. Ephraim par- 
tially smothered her wrath for two reigns, during the 
splendor of rule under David and Solomon, but when the 
latter 's son Rehoboam took the throne, the flag of rebellion 
was raised under Jeroboam, and the shout was, "To your 
tents, O Israel: now see to thine own house, David," and 
the kingdom was rent in twain, most of the ten tribes of 
Israel, with Ephraim at the head, revolting from Judah and 
from the rest who remained loyal. To such an extent did 
Ephraim carry her envy of Judah. She let her jealous spirit 
work to the destruction of the kingdom, and finally to her 

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HALF-BAKED PEOPLE 

own destruction, as she was carried away into captivity with 
the other rebelling tribes to be forever known as "the lost 
tribes." She had in her an element of goodness, she was 
very zealous in the Lord's work so long as she could lead, but 
when Judah's influence began to predominate, the jealous 
side of her nature came out. In one respect she was all 
right, in another all wrong. 

She was only half-baked, like many a person now, who, 
if he can have a controlling voice, will be active religiously 
or otherwise, but, if he thinks he is not sufficiently appre- 
ciated, he makes himself a disturbing element, or at any rate 
he does not labor in harmony with others, or to say the least, 
like Achilles sulking in his tent he lingers in the background 
with an injured sort of feeling. In homely but expressive 
phrase, "His nose is out of joint. " Any who refuse to do 
what they can because they are not made enough of are 
cakes not turned. They must be forever looked after and 
coddled, if they are to be at all faithful. Such, too, are al- 
ways taking slights. Much of the unhappiness and misery 
of this life is caused by this very thing. There are animosi- 
ties even between members of the same church for this 
reason. Professed believers sometimes are hardly on speaking 
terms because of small bickerings. Sharp things are said, and 
there are angry retorts. There are strained relations be- 
tween those who ought to dwell together in unity, in the 
pleasantest relations, in harmony and love. There is the 
maintenance of an un-Christianlike spirit, because they have 
foolishly allowed their feelings to be hurt. There is to their 
natures a very sensitive side, which needs baking in order to 
lose some of the undesirable tenderness. The miserable part 
of their disposition should be exposed to the fire of grace, 
that it may be made like the admirable part. We want those 

[73] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

who are the same clear through, who have had the soft 
dough eliminated, who are even and always the same, un- 
suspicious and helpful, sympathetic and forgiving, kindly 
and gracious. 

3. We have been making distinctions between emotion 
and principle, between sensitiveness and sweetness, and we 
advance to a third and perhaps the most vital differentiation 
between the worldly and the religious, between the moral and 
the spiritual. Ephraim was two-sided in that she had yearn- 
ings for Jehovah on the one hand, and a longing for Egypt 
and Assyria on the other. She was constantly being warned 
against foreign alliances, but she seemed infatuated with the 
idea of keeping up communication with one or the other of 
the great world-powers of antiquity. After the slavery 
which she had experienced in Egypt, it would have 
seemed as if she would have avoided all intercourse with 
that country, but she did not. She was threatened with cap- 
tivity to the Assyrians, but she went on courting this eastern 
nation, till the predicted disaster came, and Babylon held 
her in subjection. Every Ephraimite to-day by following 
this course will have a similar experience, and here is the 
danger with many a person. He has a spiritual nature which 
reaches out after God, and a worldly nature which desires 
the things of earth. But he cannot serve God and Mammon. 
As this government could not permanently exist half free 
and half slave, he cannot be half Christian and half sinner. 
He can be, but he will be spoiled for either religious or 
earthly enjoyment, with the doughy side of his nature 
sticking and clinging to the world. 

Nor does the merely moral, good so far as it goes, meet 
the full requirment. There is a lower range of life which has 
to do with human relations, but there is a higher which deals 

[74] 



HALF-BAKED PEOPLE 

with our relations to the divine. We can illustrate this from 
a charming love story in the book of Joshua. In this romance 
Caleb was given a certain possession in Canaan, but an entire 
ownership could come only from a complete conquest. There 
was one specially difficult point to gain, and Caleb promised 
to the warrior who would take it his daughter Achsah in 
marriage. The offer stimulated Othniel, who subsequently 
became the first Judge in Israel, to heroic endeavor not only 
to conquer the place but also to win the fair prize. He suc- 
ceeded, and when he claimed his bride, her dowry was some 
land in the south that was lacking in water. Near by lay a 
mountain slope with springs at its summit and at its base, 
and she desired her affianced to ask of her father the well- 
watered field, but he seemed reluctant to comply with the 
request, which might have indicated in him a grasping dis- 
position. The day came when she was to go forth the 
wife of the man she loved. She was mounted, ready to 
depart, when suddenly she alighted from the fleet animal 
upon which she sat, and herself asked for the field with its 
copious springs. Tender and generous emotions were play- 
ing in the father's heart at the parting, and he was only too 
glad to add to his beloved daughter's dowry the beautiful 
green slope upon which her young heart was set. The pos- 
session was a valuable one with its upland and its lowland, 
each of which was bountifully irrigated by nature. These 
" upper and nether springs," which the bride of old sought 
and obtained, have their counterparts in the realm of re- 
ligion, which has to do both with the spiritualities and the 
moralities. We are to be right in our relations not only with 
one another but also with God. And with regard to the 
latter, it is not sufficient to worship him simply in nature. 

[75] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

God's " first temples' ' in Bryant's groves of the forest 
primeval need to be supplemented by the holy temple. 

Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy found great delight 
in nature, of which there has never been a better interpreter 
than this poet, who also felt the subtle inspiration of his 
gentle and inseparable companion, and for a while they did 
not observe the Lord's Day as they should have done. But in 
1832 the sister thus wrote, "My sentiments have undergone 
a great change since 1803 respecting the absolute necessity 
of keeping the Sabbath by a regular attendance at church." 
The temple of nature was henceforth loved not less, but the 
holy temple more, for there appeared the upper springs that 
refreshed the weary spirit. If we confine ourselves to the 
moralities which are entirely proper, and exclude the 
spiritualities which also are essential, we are likely to suffer 
a decline in our religious life. Worth noting in this regard 
is the experience of Ephraim. Neglecting the devotional, 
she gradually became as secular as the neighboring states. 
Her more religious people left her, and settled in Judah, 
that they might have the privilege of worshipping in the 
temple at Jerusalem. This was as much of a loss to Ephraim, 
as it was to France when the Huguenots were constrained to 
leave her, going to England and other countries, where they 
could worship God as they had done before. 

People now become estranged from the church, con- 
cluding that they can get along without Jerusalem, without 
being specially religious. They can be simply moral like the 
rest of the world. The conclusion to which they come is, 
that morality and not religion is the thing needed. They 
become more and more indifferent to organized Christianity, 
and increasingly absorbed in the world. Such persons are 
not giving one side of their natures adequate attention. They 

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HALF-BAKED PEOPLE 

may be doing the fair thing by their neighbors, they may be 
honest and obliging; and that is good so far as it goes, the 
cake is baking on one side, the character is properly forming 
on the moral side, but the religious side remains dough, and 
is not changing in the least. Certainly if there is a Supreme 
Being, they should live with some reference to Him, they 
should be as careful to meet their obligations to Him as to 
their fellowmen. They should attend public worship as well 
as look after business; they should be religious as well as 
moral; they should be spiritual as well as upright. Other- 
wise they are cakes unturned, like Ephraim, after breaking 
away from the sanctuary at Jerusalem, entering upon a 
course of deterioration, and losing the little spirituality that 
once existed. They begin a decadence, slow but sure, until 
they become wholly worldly, completely estranged from 
Zion and joined to their idols. Inevitable under such cir- 
cumstances is a religious decline, which steadily advances to 
a final fall like that of the Roman Empire, and there is no 
recovery. A one-sided development along the line of the 
ethical only is fatal without the cultivation likewise of the 
distinctively spiritual. We have within us that which 
reaches out after the transient and the human, but equally 
that which longs for the eternal and the divine. We are 
dualistic in our make-up, and in giving an entirely proper 
attention to the material, we must not forget the celestial. 
If we are neglectful at this point, however much of the 
burden and heat of the day may be ours otherwise, we are 
not meeting as we should the graver responsibilities of life. 
Moral excellence needs to be reinforced by Christlike char- 
acter. 



[77] 



CHAPTER VII 

Some Biblical and April Fools 

MEN OFTEN fail to measure up to the standard of 
the moral order in a way that seems exceedingly 
foolish. In proceeding to discuss this subject, we feel our- 
inadequacy, and our own folly may therein appear, "For 
fools rush in where angels fear to tread," Pope has said in 
an oft-quoted line. It is to be noted that we have in the 
ecclesiastical calendar what is called "all saints' day," and 
still better known perhaps is "all fools' day," the first of 
April. We are to devote this chapter to a consideration not 
of Scriptural saints but of Biblical fools, while also we bear 
in mind the familiar saying, "The fools are not all dead yet." 
The great dramatist in the English language has woven 
some comedy into his tragedies to make them complete, on 
the principle, as stated by one writer, "that the spring of 
laughter is generally very near to the fountain of tears," 
since "man is the only animal that laughs and weeps." 
Accordingly all Shakespearean scholars make a special study 
of the poet's Fools or Clowns, the professional jesters of the 
past. An understanding of these characters is necessary to 
a full appreciation of the Plays, and King Lear's Fool has 
been pronounced the "key" to the whole drama in which he 
acts his part, and he confessedly stands out the greatest of 
Shakespeare's "natural born Fools." Now the fools of the 
Book of books act as foils to its saints, and therefore they are 
worthy of some attention. They are multitudinous, but only 

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SOME BIBLICAL AND APRIL FOOLS 

three of them, who however are typical of large classes, can 
be passed in review before us in the space at our present 
disposal. Though the writer may make some personal 
applications, he does not regard himself as out of the list 
of those who seem to have been opprobriously named. The 
term will apply all around, with little or no limitation. 

Bishop Vincent of Methodist and Sunday-school fame on 
one occasion introduced the distinguished Baptist, Dr. 
Henson, to a Chautauqua audience in this way, u We will now 

listen to a lecture on Fools by one of the wisest men 

in the country.' ' The lecturer's quick retort was, "I am 

not half as big a fool as Bishop Vincent would have 

you believe.' ' In the deepest sense they both spoke the 
truth, though they did it so facetiously. The fact is, that 
all must confess to a lack of real wisdom. A German arch- 
bishop of the eighteenth century in exile once gave notice, 
that he would preach in the Court Chapel at Versailles on 
the first of April, and when a large congregation had 
gathered, he appeared in the pulpit and shouted out what 
could not be gainsaid, " April fools all!", and immediately 
took his departure. It will be our aim to prove from the 
Word the truth of this abrupt exclamation. 

The origin of April Fool's Day is not certain, but like 
almost every other old custom, it probably had a religious 
beginning, among the Hindus or Romans or early Christians. 
One explanation follows. In the middle ages, scenes from 
Biblical history were often acted on the stage. That scene 
in the New Testament where Pilate, wishing to be free of 
the responbility of trying and condemning Christ, sent him to 
Herod, only to have the tetrach return the prisoner to 
himself again; that was represented in April when the 
occurrence is supposed actually to have taken place. Pilate 

[79] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

was fooled in hoping to palm off a disagreeable ease upon 
Herod, who sent it straight back to him, and so this sending 
of the Lord to Herod by Pilate was a fruitless errand, and 
being represented every April, it may have given rise to 
sending on fruitless errands in general, and to the innumer- 
able other tricks for which all fools' day is noted. Such is 
one theory, which does not seem altogether improbable, 
when we are told that the phrase, sending from Pilate to 
Herod, is common in Germany to signif}^ sending about 
unnecessarily. At any rate, the Roman governor did make 
a fool of himself on that April day in the long ago, and many 
a man does yet. 

1. There are those whose sentiment is given by the 
Scriptural verse, "The fool hath said in his heart, There 
is no God. ' ' These reject religion outright. They believe in 
no God, no Christ, no Christianity. They are not in a state 
of bewilderment, hardly knowing what to think, but they 
are positive in their unbelief. They are the noisy, blatant 
fools. They know the gospel is all a sham. Question them 
to find out how they can be so certain, and as a rule it will 
be ascertained, that they are backsliders, or as it is expressed 
in close connection with our verse, they have "gone aside.' ' 
They were once professors. It would not be supposed from 
their present life, that they had ever been serious over the 
soul's salvation, but they have been. Mark the most out- 
spoken infidel that can be found, the one who says with the 
greatest flourish that Christianity is a fraud, that there is 
nothing to religion, and at some time in the past he has been 
forward for prayers, and he has gone through, as he sup- 
poses, the regular procedure for experiencing religion. 
After the excitement has ended, the nervous exhilaration or 
good feeling being all gone, and there being nothing left, 

[80] 



SOME BIBLICAL AND APRIL FOOLS 

he concludes that religion is a hoax. Indeed he is sure there 
is nothing to it, for he has been through it, and so knows 
whereof he speaks. He can tell one all about getting re- 
ligion, for he got it once, and accordingly he has not the 
least doubt but that the whole thing is a farce, mere imagina- 
tion, a temporary excitement. Poor fool! his nerves were 
played upon, and while the playing continued he sang and 
prayed vigorously, but no longer, and he verily believes he 
has experienced all there is to the Christian religion. He 
once got it in the orthodox fashion, he says, only he was 
level-headed enough to see it was a delusion. 

Perhaps he did get religion, but religion certainly 
never got him, never took hold of his heart. He has no idea 
whatever of what it is to become a Christian. Of course his 
experience was a matter of nerves, otherwise he would not 
have collapsed so soon. He has not the remotest conception 
of that inner regeneration which ever after exercises a con- 
trolling power over the life. Foolish man to think, that 
because he felt strangely at a certain time he knows all 
about Christianity, which is not a matter of feeling at all but 
of principle. He never had the real life. Suppose a battery 
should be applied to a corpse, the electricity flying along the 
nerves sets every limb in motion, but the movements are of 
the twitching, jerking kind, altogether different from the 
grace and spring and force of the live man. He who is dead 
in trespasses and sins is not quickened, has not the new life, 
because forsooth his nerves under some magnetic influence 
make him go through certain religious antics. Yet such a 
one is just foolish enough to suppose that he has experienced 
all there is to religion, and so declares with all confidence 
that it is nothing but nervous excitement. 

That is what the fool claims, and he has a supreme 

[81] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER, 

contempt for all who profess to have met with a change. 
He delights to hold up their deficiencies. His great hobby 
is the inconsistencies of Christians. It is his meat and drink 
to point out the imperfections of church-members. The in- 
spired Psalmist in speaking of such says, "They eat up my 
people as they eat bread." That is it precisely, the fool 
lives on the failings of Christians. He has nothing to sustain 
him, except that others do wrong. Ask him what his hope 
for the future is, and he straightway begins to rant about 
those who profess to have a hope "sure and steadfast.' ' He 
will never consider himself, but he is forever firing away at 
others, whose lives, he says, demonstrate that there is noth- 
ing to Christianity. 

It is useless to argue with such a person, trying to show 
him how the gospel has elevated mankind, how it improves a 
community, how it transforms individuals; it is wholly in- 
effective to talk with him along that line, for the fool can 
not be convinced. Argument he loves, but nothing is gained 
thereby, except that he is thus made to feel his importance, 
and that is a distinct loss for the good cause. Oliver Wendell 
Holmes once said with reference to carping literary critics 
what applies very well to controversial sceptics, "If you had 
a bent tube, one arm of which was the size of a pipe-stem, 
and the other big enough to hold the ocean, water would 
stand at the same height in one as in the other. Contro- 
versy equalizes fools and wisemen in the same way, — and the 
fools know it." So that the Scriptural fool we are con- 
sidering cannot be argued into the truth. His dashing 
assertion, There is no God, there is nothing to Christianity, 
settles the matter so far as he is concerned. Are there any 
holding to such views? If so, there can be fittingly adapted 
to them the dramatist's language in Midsummer-Night's 

[&] 



SOME BIBLICAL AND APRIL FOOLS 

Dream, "What fools these mortals be!" It will be only re- 
iterating Scripture to say of them on each recurring first 
day of April, April fools? It is to be hoped, to use the old 
phrase and familiar rhyme, that when April first is past, 
they be not fools at last. There is a God, as they will find 
some day to their joy or sorrow, and if they think otherwise, 
they are living in "a fool's paradise,' ' and are bound to 
become undeceived. 

2. Besides the outright rejection of Christianity, there 
is what amounts to the same thing in him who becomes so 
interested in the world, that God is forgotten. He is not so 
much a rank unbeliever, as he is a worldling. All his plans 
are for temporal acquisition. He does not openly reject the 
gospel, but he simply ignores it ; not wilfully so much as that 
he is filled with other thoughts. We see this intense worldli- 
ness coming out in the person, who broke in upon one of 
Christ's most spiritual discourses with the abrupt, "Master, 
bid my brother divide the inheritance with me. ' ' This inter- 
ruption came in just after the Lord had been speaking most 
solemnly of the persecutions to which the disciples should 
be subject, while yet help should be given them from above. 
It was accordingly no place for a question about property. 
It was as if some one in an audience should stop a minister 
in the midst of an earnest sermon to ask him about some farm 
land or a corner lot. It was as if one should approach a 
father, standing at the grave into which his child's body 
was being lowered, and should inquire of the sorrowing 
parent, how much he had to pay for a plot of ground big 
enough to hold a child of that size. Such incongruity is 
startling, and yet people can become so worldly as to have 
no appreciation whatever of the spiritual. 

In answer to the incongruous request of the worldling, 

[83] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

to indicate how utterly devoid he was of the religious, there 
was related the parable of the "rich fool," whose ground 
brought forth so plentifully that he fairly luxuriated in his 
abundance. He hardly knew what to do with all he had, as 
he talked comfortingly to himself of "my barns" and "my 
goods," while he could take his "ease, eat, drink, be merry," 
because of what he had in prospect "for many years." A 
very cozy picture the whole affair, had not his Maker added, 
"Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee; 
and the things which thou has prepared, whose shall they 
be?" 

Many a one is so taken up with the present as to have a 
like forgetfulness of the future. He may be entirely honest 
in his pursuit of earthly comforts, and be acting the fool 
nevertheless. "The ground" of the rich man in the New 
Testament story "brought forth plentifully," and hence his 
riches were gotten by no extortion, by no injustice, but by 
the fertility of the soil. He was not to blame for getting the 
most he could out of the soil which Providence had made so 
productive. His mistake, his sin was, that be became so 
absorbed in the gifts as to forget the Giver. Here is the 
trouble yet with many. They are perfectly honorable in 
their commercial transactions, they are straight in business, 
they make their gains by no dishonest means, but their 
interest in the world increases more and more, till the re- 
ligious (for which there is little or no time) is all crowded 
out of their hearts. They work so hard for the material 
during the week, that they are quite ready to neglect the 
sanctuary on the sabbath. 

Call their attention to things higher than the earthly, 
and they frankly acknowledge that God has claims upon 
them ; they are kindly disposed toward religion, they regard 

[«*] 



SOME BIBLICAL AND APHIL FOOLS 

it a good thing for others, for their wives and children, but 
somehow they do not bestir themselves. They possibly can 
look back to a time when the spiritual did move their souls, 
but now they never have those feelings, and they conclude 
they must have outgrown the noble religious impulses of 
youth, and they have to a great extent. The earthly has 
grown faster than the heavenly, which has thus been out- 
grown and overtopped. There was nothing sudden about 
the change ; it was gradual, and is best described as a growth. 
One may be a long-sighted worldling, while he is short- 
sighted spiritually, for his soul soon will be required of him, 
and his gains will have to be left behind. It will be better 
for him so to have conducted himself that while he may have 
been an April fool, he shall not be an everlasting one. 

3. Once more, on a sabbath afternoon, in early April 
according to the common chronology, two disciples 
nineteen centuries ago started from Jerusalem to go to the 
village of Emmaus. As they journeyed along, they talked of 
all that had recently happened, and presently they were 
joined by an apparent stranger whom they told of their 
Master's death, and burial, and rumored resurrection, and 
for the last report (which they could hardly credit though 
they knew as to the rest) there was some foundation in that 
the tomb was certainly empty. Still those two disciples on 
that April Sunday were in doubt. They could speak with 
no more confidence than that they had " hoped" it had been 
he who was to redeem Israel. They were full of distrust. 
To those bewildered ones, the stranger who was none other 
than Christ himself said, "0 foolish men, and slow of heart 
to believe." April fools they were, and so was Thomas who 
was the greatest doubter of them all. Thorwaldsen has 
sculptured him standing in marble with rule in hand as if 

[85] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

to measure carefully all evidence. He very likely would 
have approved of what Tennyson has since written: 

" There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
Believe me, than in half the creeds. ' ' 

But the rankest doubter of them all had such tangible evi- 
dence presented to him, that there came from him that burst 
of conviction, ' ' My Lord and my God ! ? ' 

Many at present are in a similar condition of partial 
unbelief. It seems so foolish, when once any have felt Christ 
to be the hope of glory, that they should ever waver again 
in their faith, and yet they sometimes do. Jesus has to come 
frequently to their relief by an oft opening of the Scriptures. 
"When they neglect the reading of the prophets who spake of 
him, when they do not statedly feed upon the Word, when 
they do not live in close communion with the Lord, the first 
thing they are aware of is that they are questioning the 
very foundations. They wonder if it was all true about his 
alleged life and resurrection and ascension. They walk in 
darkness and away from Jerusalem. But when the risen 
Redeemer sympathetically joins them in their doubt and 
solitariness, and when they listen to the frequent expounding 
of Holy Writ, and when they hear set forth once and again 
the reasonableness of the resurrection and of the hope thereby 
begotten, their hearts begin to burn, their fears remove, and 
they experience a deep satisfaction which speaks of reality, 
and every Lord ? s Day and especially every Easter is a 
reminder of their foolishness in being slow to believe the 
best attested fact in human annals. They can adopt the 
conclusion of one who was an exact and unbiased historian, 
Dr. Arnold of Rugby, who said: "I have been used for 

[86] 



SOME BIBLICAL AND APRIL FOOLS 

many years to study the history of other times, and to 
examine and weigh the evidences of those who have written 
about them; and I know of no one fact in the history of 
mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of 
every sort, to the mind of the fair inquirer, than that Christ 
died, and rose again from the dead." None need be Biblical 
fools any longer, but confident and joyful believers in the 
resurrection hope, and in the whole train of precious gospel 
truths that go therewith. 

There remains for all, therefore, only one thing to do, and 
that is to seek a proper alignment. There can be no uncer- 
tainty as to what that is, when we remember that never in 
life's great crisis have any regretted that they were Christians. 
The only folly would seem to be not to make use of the 
opportunity there is to be transferred to the list of the truly 
wise. It is not enough to express Balaam's desire to die the 
death of the righteous and to have a last end like his. There 
must be more than wishing, there must be positive action. 

1 ' In idle wishes fools supinely stay ; 

Be there a will, and wisdom finds a way." 



[87] 



CHAPTER VIII 
Shibboleth or Sibboleth 

WE ARE testing man in various relations of life to see 
wherein he fails of being in harmony with the moral 
order. Capable of modern use is a quaint but effective test 
of the Old Testament. Jephthah, one of Israel 's Judges, had 
gained a glorious victory. The Ephraimites were sensitive, 
as we have already observed, over not having been invited to 
participate in the enterprise. They were irritated because 
of not having had a share in the honor, and, therefore, with 
an army they crossed the Jordan, and proposed to have satis- 
faction; and Jephthah satisfied them, for he put himself at 
the head of the Gileadites, and gave them a sound threshing. 
Not only was Ephraim defeated, but the Gileadites took pos- 
session of the fords of the Jordan, and suffered not an 
Ephraimite to cross back to his native land. "And it was 
so, ' ' says the sacred narrative, ' ' that when any of the fugitives 
of Ephraim said, Let me go over, the men of Gilead said unto 
him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; then said 
they unto him, Say now Shibboleth; and he said Sibboleth, 
for he could not frame to pronounce it right; then they laid 
hold on him, and slew him at the fords of Jordan: and 
there fell at that time of Ephraim forty and two thousand.' ' 
The avenger stood at the river bank to destroy all who by 
their speech betrayed themselves as enemies of Israel's Judge. 
We speak of the Shibboleth of a party to characterize some 
peculiarity of little importance, but often something very 

[88] 



SHIBBOLETH OR SIBBOLETH 

slight is a criterion of lack in what is most essential. A small 
matter may be decisive of real character, and of final destiny. 
Said Milton of the Ephraimites on the occasion of which 
we are writing: 

4 'Without reprieve adjudged to death, 
For want of well pronouncing Shibboleth. ' ' 

Nor do we have in this an exceptional incident. There 
was a prolonged discussion in the early church as to whether 
Christ was of like or of the same substance with the Father, 
as to whether the Greek word homoiousios or homaousios 
should be used in the creed. Gibbon ridiculed the idea of 
there being such an ado over a single letter, for the two terms 
differed by only an iota, our i. Some now would be inclined 
to say that Christians should not have "cared an iota" about 
the whole matter, and yet the question involved was as to 
whether the Lord was a mere man or truly divine. It was 
a very vital test, when a professed disciple was asked whether 
he said homoiousios or homoousios, as decisive as the difference 
revealed in a person saying Sibboleth for Shibboleth. Creator 
and creature differ only by two letters, but the difference 
between these is, as has been said, the distance that "spans 
eternity. ' ' 

We can cite other cases of similar import. In the great 
world war, which began its devasting course in 1914, a 
reputable Daily stated that the supreme test applied by 
Great Britain, to determine whether a suspect was really 
an Englishman or an English-speaking German and presum- 
ably a spy, was to require him to pronounce, the word 
1 ' squirrel, ' ' which philologists claim no Teuton can utter cor- 
rectly. His heavy tongue can not manage the name of this 

[89] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

nimble animal, and for this reason more than one, thus 
proved with other corroborating evidence to be a spy, was 
ruthlessly shot. 

We are reminded again of an experience which Hannibal 
and his army anciently had. The celebrated General, desiring 
a good camping-place for the refreshment of his weary 
soldiers, ordered the guides to take them, as he supposed, to 
the district of "Casinum." His inaccurate pronunciation 
led to himself and his followers being conducted to the town 
of "Casilinum," which was in a marshy and enclosed valley, 
where they were nearly destroyed; all because Hannibal had 
said Casilinum rather than Casinum. The addition of two 
letters almost resulted in his overthrow, as the Sibboleth 
instead of Shibboleth did work the destruction of the 
Ephraimites. 

We can apply a similar test to ascertain what shall be 
our fate at our Jordan. Will our speech prove us friends 
or foes of "the Judge of all the earth?" Shall we say 
Shibboleth or Sibboleth? Shall we frame to pronounce it 
right or wrong ? It depends upon the kind of speech to which 
we familiarize ourselves here, and in the Ephraimites of old 
that was determined by a lack of practice. They had that 
indefinable touch of speech, sometimes called a brogue, which 
always distinguishes a foreigner. They had been taught to 
say Sibboleth, and there had come to be a corresponding 
malformation of their vocal organs. So it is with the moral 
and religious ; early habit has great power. If we are brought 
up wrong, we will not be apt to be right at the Jordan. It 
is important to have our daily walk and conversation con- 
sistent, to have our speech proper all through life, if we 
would have it so at the end. Thus the prime essential is to 
look to the present, for that determines the future. Does the 

[90] 



SHIBBOLETH OR SIBBOLETH 

manifestation of a Christian spirit come natural to us, has 
it become to us a second nature ? If we have been thus born 
again, the language of the new birth will have become our 
mother tongue, the one which we most constantly and freely 
use. If our speech has not the right accent or tone to it, 
then we are not Christians, at least such as we should be, 
we say Sibboleth for Shibboleth. We can test ourselves 
variously here, and the discovery very likely will be made, 
that all are more or less deficient. 

1. How do we speak at home? Are we "tenderly affec- 
tioned one to another? " Some are all sweetness and grace 
only toward those outside of the domestic circle. They are 
obliging as the day is long — toward neighbors and friends, 
in whose presence they permit no outbursts of passion. 
Socially they are very genial. So far as the general public is 
concerned, they are agreeable enough. But follow them into 
the household, and their words do not flow so smoothly. They 
snap up at those who stand in the nearest relations to them, 
and they are anything but gentle and considerate in the 
family. They explode with anger, if things do not move 
to suit their whims. They storm away at a great rate, if any 
thing goes wrong, at every little annoyance. Probably they 
often have grounds of provocation, but even then they should 
increasingly learn to possess the soul in patience. To be a 
Christian is to be pleasant in the home, is to refrain from 
violent speech there, and from what is quite as bad, namely, 
an incessant nagging, a persistent prodding. We can not 
think of the Master forever irritating and unnecessarily 
assailing those he loved. He did sometimes reprove, as he 
did the nervous Martha who once made herself so disagree- 
able, and occasionally he broke forth into real indignation, and 
gave the most scathing rebukes, but he was never what we 

[9i] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

term peevish, he was not a petty fault-finder. His general 
disposition was amiability itself. He went about, not fretting 
and fuming, but doing good. 

That should be our prevailing temper, kindliness. If we 
provide not this for our own household, we are worse than 
many an infidel. We may lose control of ourselves now 
and then, for we are human, but it should be less and less 
frequently. We need to guard ourselves at many points. 
For instance, we are taught in Holy Writ, that fathers are 
not to provoke their children to wrath. They may do that 
by snap judgments, by too quick condemnation before learning 
all the facts. They do not give careful consideration as to 
what the real situation may be. They are as hasty as Words- 
worth and his sister and Coleridge once were. These literary 
people one day were walking by the margin of an English 
Lake which their strolls have made famous, when in the 
distance they saw a peasant fishing, " while from the fields 
the merry noise of the reapers fell upon their ears. They 
somewhat hastily came to the conclusion that the man was 
an idler, who, instead of spending his time at the gentle 
craft, might have been more profitably engaged in the 
harvest. Upon a near approach they, however, found that 
he was a feeble old man, wasted by sickness, and too weak to 
labor, who was doing his best to gain a scanty pittance from 
the lake." The three thereupon reproached themselves for 
the conclusion to which they had too quickly jumped, and 
for the unkind reflection which they had made upon the 
unfortunate man. Wordsworth immediately wrote a poem 
containing these lines: 

"What need there is to be reserved in speech, 
And to temper all our thoughts with charity." 

[92] 



SHIBBOLETH OR SIBBOLETH 

Then he gave a memorial name to the place where they had 
stood at the time of their unjust criticism: 

"And Point Rash- Judgment is the name it bears." 

Many parents have stood there in provoking their children 
to wrath by condemning them before making a proper 
investigation. 

If our home influence is on the whole destructive of 
peace and joy on account of ill-considered words, we may 
well be alarmed lest our speech betrays us at the passages 
of the Jordan. Nay, even in our lifetime there may come 
keen regret for past expressions of irritability which was 
altogether unjustified. We need to remember the touching 
lines about scattering seeds of kindness : 

"If we knew the baby fingers, 

Pressed against the window pane, 
Would be cold and stiff to-morrow, 

Never trouble us again, 
Would the bright eyes of our darling 

Catch the frown upon our brow ? 
Would the prints of rosy fingers 
Vex us then as they do now ? 
Ah ! those little ice-cold fingers, 

How they point our memories back 
To the hasty words and actions 

Strewn along our backward track! 
How those little hands remind us, 

As in snowy grace they lie, 
Not to scatter thorns, but roses, 

For our reaping by and by." 

[93] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

We should, therefore, accustom \ourselves to kindness of 
utterance and conduct, for unless we do, when we come to 
cross the Jordan, out of our own mouths shall we be con- 
demned. We will find that our organs can not frame to 
pronounce right that to which they have not become adapted 
from daily practice. We shall be saying Sibboleth instead 
of Shibboleth, and be in danger of being excluded from the 
household of God above. We should heed the admonition of 
Paul to the Colossians: "Let your speech be always with 
grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how to answer 
each one." The "soft answer turneth away wrath." The 
seasoning of grace is what we need, as we become more and 
more gracious in all our speaking. 

2. Religion, however, does not belong exclusively to 
the family. Christian speech takes a wider sweep than that. 
The glad tidings should make the home a place of happiness, 
and should also fill the world with joy. Others are to be brought 
to the same faith as ourselves, and this is to be done largely 
by the personal word. Such at least was the apostolic method ; 
it was Andrew finding Peter, and Philip seeking out 
Nathanael. It was the kingdom talked everywhere, in the 
synagogue, in the market-place, and from house to house; on 
the seashore and by the river bank, on the road to Gaza and 
during the walk out to the village of Emmaus, on the moun- 
tain top of Olivet and in the Bethany home, at the receipt 
of custom where Matthew at his desk of business was spoken 
to, and in the boat gliding over smooth lake. It was in short 
and should be the making of religion a matter of familiar 
converse. And this is to be not only by the eloquent Apollos 
mighty in the Scriptures, but equally by Acquila the tent- 
maker together with his wife Priscilla. 

That is the only way in which the cause of Christ can 

[94] 



SHIBBOLETH OR SIBBOLETH 

be made to advance as it should, and in which a church can 
be made to grow with any satisfaction. A star performer 
in the pulpit will not bring the desired results, not though it 
be a star of the first magnitude, around which the people 
revolve like satellites; that is, like satellites one day in 
seven (on Sunday), for the rest of the week they are more 
like comets, shooting off no one, knows where. Such a church, 
to change the figure, is like a hive full of drones hoping to 
feed on what a single bee can gather, and that bee doing 
little more perhaps than keeping up a vigorous buzzing, a 
sensation going all the time. Substantial and permanent 
results are not thus attained, but rather by all setting to 
work, individual seeing individual, and making religion a 
personal matter. 

But, the plea not infrequently is, we can not, it is for us 
not natural. In other words, like the Ephraimite, we can not 
" frame to pronounce it right/ ' But really, we urge, there 
is a knack about giving testimony for the Master and about 
speaking to others, and that we do not have. To this it must 
be said, that persons are differently gifted in this respect, 
and yet there is room and opportunity for the exercise 
of the single talents. Every one can say something for the 
cause. We may plead that if we should attempt to speak of 
personal religion, we would only blunder, doing more harm 
than good. This being interpreted would seem to mean, that 
if we should try to say Shibboleth, we would blunder and 
say Sibboleth. Suppose that under these circumstances we 
were brought down to the Jordan. Can we pass over? Are 
we truly Christians ? This for substance will be what we will 
be asked, and our reply will be in the affirmative, for we will 
be aware that only such will be allowed to enter the promised 
land. To get at something more definite, the inquiry will 

[95] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

be pressed, Have you worked in the vineyard, what did you 
say for the Lord? Then as we endeavor to tell what, our 
speech will betray us, we will find ourselves saying something 
just a little different from what we should, and that will 
determine the question of our real Christianity. We may not 
have the happy faculty of speaking the word in season, 
neither did the Ephraimite have the knack of pronouncing 
Shibboleth right, but it is our business to get the knack. 
It will be hard at first, but constant trying insures success. 
The natural organs of speech have to be educated into cor- 
rectness of pronunciation, and the spiritual organs require 
a like training in order that one may advocate well the good 
cause. Here, then, is a duty, which we ought to make an 
effort to meet. It is not enough that we are leading an 
orderly life. Are we doing anything to bring others into 
the kingdom ? Do we talk up our church ? Do we invite our 
acquaintances to its services for the hearing of some saving 
and helpful message? Does a word about religion with any 
frequency pass our lips? At the Jordan the test will be 
applied along such lines, and we may well tremble lest our true 
status there be made manifest, our Shibboleth turning out to 
be the self-convicting Sibboleth. 

3. Having considered the speaking to those at home and 
the talking to others, there comes next the address to God, 
the communicating with our Heavenly Father. Does prayer 
rise spontaneously from the heart? Praying is, according 
to the sacred poet, the Christian's "vital breath," and where 
there is no breath there is death. The warm-hearted disciple 
is full of the spirit of supplication and of thanksgiving; 
prayerless is to be lifeless. What is our condition in this 
regard ? Perhaps there is no fervor in our private devotions, 

[96] 



SHIBBOLETH OR SIBBOLETH 

if indeed we have them at all ; we can not frame to pronounce 
them right. We may have no experience of any " quiet hour." 
We may not cultivate the habit of silently lifting up the 
heart for divine help in life's emergencies. By sufficient 
practice this can become something spontaneous and entirely 
natural, until we consciously and constantly live in com- 
munion with the celestial. We almost literally obey the apos- 
tolic injunction to 'pray without ceasing." To come into 
such a desirable attitude of mind and heart whereby we can 
be characterized as persons of prayer, we should daily talk 
with God, either audibly or silently. 

Gladstone wrote to one of his sons at Oxford, "It is 
most beneficial to cultivate the habit of inwardly turning 
the thoughts to God, though but for a moment in the course 
or during the intervals of our business, which continually 
presents occasions requiring His aid and guidance." That, 
according to his biographer, John Morley, was not only his 
counsel but also his own "lifelong habit." We may well 
follow the example in this respect of the most illustrious and 
the most versatile statesman of the nineteenth century. 

If some crisis should come, like being on a sinking 
Titanic, or like being otherwise brought to face suddenly 
eternity, we would in any such emergency cry out unto our 
Maker, we would seek succor from Him, and the reconciliation 
which we instinctively feel to be needful. We would then 
desire above every thing else to be on speaking terms with 
him who gave us our being. But we might not be able to 
establish instantaneously that relationship. As we en- 
deavored to do so, unaccustomed to anything of the sort for 
a lifetime, we might find ourselves covered with confusion. 
We might discover that, like the Ephraimites, we are saying 
Sibboleth when we meant to say Shibboleth. What we need 

[97] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

to do is to train ourselves to spiritual utterance, is to practice 
along that line. Even Shakespeare makes Hamlet say : 

"I hold it fit that we shake hands and part; 
You, as your business and desire shall point you — 
For every man has business and desire, 
Such as it is, — and for mine own poor part, 
Look you, 111 go pray." 

Now if any do not live in communion with the divine, they 
can not appear with any ease of conscience before the Judge. 
They may pray then as did those in the parable, "Lord, Lord, 
open to us," but the answer will be as of old, "I know you 
not. ' ' Why ? Because it will not be true prayer. It may seem 
very much like it, but there will be as much difference as 
there was between Shibboleth and Sibboleth, and that will 
be sufficient for condemnation. 

In searching ourselves as we have been doing, the design 
has not been to intimate that we shall ever become perfect 
down here below. There will be shortcomings now and then. 
Even in the best there certainly will be slips of the tongue, 
whereby Shibboleth will be mispronounced Sibboleth. Our 
words at home will not always be as considerate as they 
should be ; the gentlest nature is sometimes rasped into harsh- 
ness of speech. There will be times when we can not talk 
with others on religious topics with any facility; we will not 
be interested in their highest welfare, Satan will have led us 
into temporary coldness. There will also be occasions when, 
assailed by wandering thoughts and by various temptations, 
we shall find ourselves in no spirit of prayer, the exercise of 
the devotional will be more of the lips than of the heart. But 
these Sibboleth periods will be brief in the live Christian. 

[98] 



SHIBBOLETH OR SIBBOLBTH 

His speech in the main will be of the Shibboleth sort. His 
earnest life on the whole will show him to be a Christian in 
spite of recognized and acknowledged imperfections. All 
eventually must come to the Jordan. The Judge of the quick 
and dead will be there, and if their speech betrays them as 
foes, they shall be stricken down, smitten with consternation 
at their fate. But if their speech betrays them as friends, if, 
like the penitent Peter who by his Galilean brogue was thus 
betrayed, they have a sympathizing Lord to look with com- 
passion on their confessed sinfulness, they shall have the 
happy destiny of being passed safely over the dark river to 
the promised land. 



[99] 



CHAPTER IX 

Fretful Porcupines 

FREQUENTLY disturbing human relations in the moral 
order is discontent, is fretfulness, which is hardly 
less sinful than wrong of a more flagrant nature. The fever- 
ish, restless state of mind is sinful. The hurry and worry of 
modern times are to be condemned. Homes are thereby 
made unhappy, and social relations are thrown into a 
chaotic condition. Shakespeare in Hamlet speaks of being 
like "the fretful porcupine." To be sure, the dramatist is 
referring to a person being so frightened, that his hair 
stands on end "like quills upon the fretful porcupine," but 
his words can be given a wider application. Like the 
strange animal, to which allusion is made, and which has 
"an armature of horny spines," and which bristles up and 
strikes its quills into any disturbing its composure, is more 
than one individual, who has about him sharp points sticking 
out everywhere. He needs to acquire more of repose. On 
the banks of a fair river, Wordsworth uttered a sentiment 
which should be echoed and reechoed, namely, 

"When the fretful stir 
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, 
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart — 
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, 
O sylvan Wye ! thou wanderer through the woods, 
How oft has my spirit turned to thee." 

[too] 



FRETFUL PORCUPINES 

1. Discontent arises, first, from a too eager pursuit of 
the material. A great and calming Psalm has said, "Fret 
not thyself." The more positive side of the same thought 
was given by the chief of the apostles whea he said, "I 
have learned in whatsoever state I am, therein to be con- 
tent.' ' It is well to remember that Paul penned those quiet- 
ing words when he was in a Roman prison, where he had 
actually gone "hungry," he said, until his necessities had 
been relieved by the kindly and benevolent Philippians, to 
whom he wrote his gratitude out of a heart abounding with 
thankfulness. Nor did he ever have abundance, for at the 
best he had only the earnings of a tent-maker, of a day 
laborer. Fraught with the deepest meaning is an exhorta- 
tion from such a one to be contented. 

The lesson is needed for the present age, with its 
feverish thirst for gold, with its intense anxiety for riches. 
People nowadays are not satisfied with the apostolic "food 
and raiment," or with a competence, or even with plenty. 
Most persons, reversing the usual order of things, are quite 
disposed to say with James Russell Lowell, "Give us the 
luxuries of life and we will do without the necessities." To 
that end they toil. They must get their thousands, and then 
their hundreds of thousands, and after that their millions, 
for only millionaires in these times are reckoned as wealthy. 
Now there is nothing wrong in getting large properties, 
provided that it is done honestly, and provided that it is all 
consecrated to the Lord, and provided that it is not allowed 
to destroy a happy Christian life. There can scarcely be a 
doubt, that all need to stop and to think more than they do. 
They are permitting themselves to be too much crowded and 
rushed, as if they could not possibly have the felicity they 
covet, till they have become financially independent. They 

[ioi] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

forget the words of Inspiration: "Better is a little with the 
fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble therewith. 
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox 
and hatred therewith." 

There certainly has been a great advance in material 
wealth since the time of our forefathers, but it is not so 
certain that there has been an increase of happiness. We 
pity the early settlers of this country with their primitive 
methods of gaining a livelihood, and with their limited re- 
sources. We read with commiseration of the axe-helve 
which is described by Horace Greeley as a sort of "pudding- 
stick," of the plow of rude and clumsy construction, of the 
daughters spinning the fleece of the flock and the flax of the 
field, of the only musical instrument then found in the home, 
the loom, whose busy shuttles played rythmically backward 
a;nd forward, of log houses or at least of very humble 
dwellings, with uncarpeted floors and pictureless walls, of 
tallow candles, and of the numberless other evidences that 
those were not times of such luxury as these are. And yet 
those were golden days, when the meeting-house and the 
family altar were not neglected amid the tremendous activi- 
ties of secular life. There was more of tranquillity. Even the 
social and domestic virtues (to say nothing of the religious) 
were more largely cultivated. The fire-side was not forsaken 
for the counting-room. There was more restful visiting and 
less hurried calling. There was the telling of long stories 
and the singing of quaint songs before open fire of blazing 
hickory. There was the spirit of contentment even in the 
softly-purring cat and in the dog resting with head between 
paws and dreaming of the last rabbit hunt. The very tea- 
kettle would swing and sing on its crane over the cheerful 
flames. There might be of an evening only pop-corn and 



FRETFUL PORCUPINES 

apples for a repast, but all would linger contentedly for that 
and for the sweet intercourse accompanying the same. There 
was nothing of what in Macbeth is called "life's fitful fever." 
Married brothers and sisters could return to the old home- 
stead and stay for more than two or three meals. There 
were, however, no millionaires. But there was godliness 
with contentment, and that was, as Holy Writ says, great 
gain. It was an improvement in that respect upon this age 
of undue excitement and consequent nervousness, which 
causes all manner of suffering. To a teacher who asked a 
boy pupil what particular pine had the longest needles, the 
prompt and perfectly correct reply was, the porcupine. 
So can testify all who have experienced the deep, sharp 
thrusts from some nervous wreck never having learned 
self-control, but ever having allowed himself to be rasped 
into an unkind and needless brusqueness. 

The old Stoic philosopher Epictetus, though a pagan, 
exemplified more of a Christian spirit than some in this age 
with its gospel light. He was lame, and he was in feeble 
health, and he was poor, and yet he could say, "Look at me, 
who am without a city, without a house, without possessions, 
without a slave. I sleep on the ground; I have no wife, no 
children, no praetorium, but only the earth and the heavens, 
and one poor cloak, and what do I want?" His trust was 
in the deity as understood by him, and hence his suggestive 
epitaph as written by himself, "I was Epictetus, a slave, and 
maimed in body, and a beggar for poverty, and dear to the 
immortals." That was something worth while. The example 
of Diogenes, another philosopher, living in his tub, rather 
than of Alexander the Great weeping for more worlds to 
conquer is what this age needs. The apocryphal interview 
between these two noted characters at Corinth is full of 

[103] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

instruction. The King of Macedon, surprised at the in- 
difference with which he was viewed by the poorly-clad 
Cynic, said to him, to awaken some appreciation, "I am 
Alexander/' only to receive the calm, dignified reply, "And 
I am Diogenes." The only favor the latter had to ask was 
that the former would not stand between him and the sun ; 
whereupon the great Macedonian much impressed said, 
"Were I not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.'' We might 
rather be Diogenes, breaking the small cup he used to carry on 
seeing a boy drink from the hollow of the hand, and con- 
tentedly adopting this method of quenching thirst, than 
Alexander madly quaffing his wine from silver and golden 
goblets in royal apartments, till he died in a drunken revel. 
We might rather be a happy Christian with simple wants sup- 
plied, than the discontented man of the world who is never 
satisfied with what he has. We might rather be a Paul with 
little of this world's goods but trustful and contented, than 
the anxious millionaire who "heapeth up riches, and knoweth 
not who shall gather them." The contrast between two such 
is strikingly described in Ecclesiastes by the verse which 
says, "The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eat 
little or much : but the fulness of the rich will not suffer him 
to sleep." When people come to the point of lying awake 
nights thinking of their business or work, and worrying 
thereover, they have gotten a long way from the spirit of the 
Master, who bade us to consider the lilies of the field, how 
they toil not and yet are gloriously arrayed, and to behold 
the birds of the air, how they gather not into barns and yet 
are bountifully fed, and to seek first the kingdom with the 
assurance that all things else needful will be added. 

Not that wealth is inconsistent with piety, it is not. It 
is a sign of civilization, and especially of Christian civiliza- 

[104] 



FRETFUL PORCUPINES 

tion. It is not found among the untutored savages, who no 
sooner begin to be civilized than they set out to accumulate. 
Joseph of Arimathea, who gave Jesus burial, was a "rich 
man." Abraham under the olden dispensation was " very- 
rich. " The trouble comes in, when the passion for gain 
leaves little or no room for love to God. All would be well, 
were the Psalmist's advice followed: "If riches increase, set 
not your heart thereon;" that is, do not let them absorb all 
the attention. The plea is not against the making of money, 
but for less haste in that direction, and for more enjoyment 
of our means from day to day. The warning is against "the 
care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches" choking 
the word. What Paul writes to Timothy is certainly very 
often true: "They that desire to be rich fall into a tempta- 
tion and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts." The 
tendency is for the financial to crowd out the religious. The 
desire for wealth is something that naturally goes on in- 
creasing, unless divinely controlled, and surely there is an 
over-solicitude for accumulating. 

The folly of wanting more and more and yet more is 
illustrated by an incident in the life of Pyrrhus, one of the 
greatest generals the world has produced, and one of Rome 's 
most powerful antagonists. The story is related by Plu- 
tarch, who says that the man "could not endure repose." 
With his restless disposition he was not satisfied with his 
already extensive dominion, but he was arranging for a 
campaign into Italy, whereupon Cineas, a friend and coun- 
selor, said, "The Romans, sir, are reported to be great 
warriors, and conquerors of many warlike nations; if God 
permits us to overcome them, how should we use our vic- 
tory?" Why, was the reply, "We shall presently be masters 
of all Italy, the extent and resources and strength of which 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MOKAL ORDER 

any one should rather profess to be ignorant of than your- 
self." Cineas after a little pause asked, "And having sub- 
dued Italy, what shall we do next? "Sicily," was the 
eager answer of Pyrrhus, "next holds out her arms to re- 
ceive us, a wealthy and populous island." "You speak," 
said Cineas, " what is perfectly probable, but will the pos- 
session of Sicily put an end to the war?" The ambitious 
general had to admit that naturally there would be a far- 
ther conquest of Libya and Carthage, and he was evidently 
pleased with the suggestion that Greece, too, should be con- 
quered. But, said Cineas, "when all these are in our power, 
what shall we do then?" Pyrrhus, seeing how adroitly he 
had been led on, smiled as he said, "We will live at our ease, 
my dear friend, . . . and divert ourselves with pleasant 
conversation." Here came the lesson as drawn by the 
sagacious friend: "And what hinders us now, sir, if we 
have a mind to be merry and to entertain one another, since 
we have at hand without trouble all those necessary things, 
to which, through much blood and great labor and infinite 
hazards and mischief done to ourselves and to others, we 
design at last to arrive ? ' ' The historian adds that the rest- 
less monarch was not diverted by these reasonings from his 
purpose, and that in a few years he died at the hand of a 
woman w T ho hurled a tile at him from the roof of a house, 
while a nervous soldier haggled his head off by blows which 
he did not accurately direct because of the dreadful look 
cast upon him by the expiring general, whose last ghastly 
expression was never forgotten. 

Like Pyrrhus is many a man now. He is going to have 
more leisure and live a different life, after he has sufficiently 
enlarged his possessions. He goes on adding this and that, 
but he insists that he is not always going to work so hard, 

[106] 



FRETFUL PORCUPINES 

that he is not going to slave it after this fashion interminably, 
that some day he expects to take things easier, and to retire 
entirely from active business, and to give himself more to the 
philanthropic and religious. Ascertain what exactly his limit 
is by inquiring if he should get twenty thousand dollars or 
fifty thousand, what he would do with such a snug sum, and 
the answer would be, "Use it as a basis from which to make 
forty or a hundred thousand dollars. ' ' What will the world- 
ling do next ? If the real secret of the matter could be gotten 
at, it would be found that the intention is make these thous- 
ands gain additional thousands with a round million per- 
haps as the goal. But in the midst of his career he is struck 
down, and then the perennial question recurs, "The things 
which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?" Godliness 
and contentment now, the only time we are sure of, are 
better than those in prospect, in an uncertain future. It is 
not worth while to fret and sweat in order to get what, once 
possessed, does not really satisfy. It does not pay to be fret- 
ful porcupines, making ourselves and all about us uncom- 
fortable, in a mad pursuit of what after all may be finally 
unattainable, and of what if attained, can be of no lasting 
value. 

2. Discontent and fretfulness likewise appear in him 
who is out of harmony with his age. He is pessimistic and un- 
happy. He complains because his lines have been cast in 
unpleasant places. He is always bemoaning the present and 
glorifying the past. To him the golden age has already 
occurred. Of him particularly can it be said in the forceful 
words of the bard of Stratford, that he is "out of joint." 
Because of his senseless ravings about "the good old times," 
we can say of him with Shakespeare, 

[107] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

"Now see that noble and most soverign reason, 
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.' ' 

A pessimist, who is like the fretful porcupine, mistakenly 
thinks "the time is out of joint," whereas he is. Ask him 
to name a particular century which is an improvement on 
the one in which he lives, and he will be unable to do so, for 
knowledge of previous periods shows the contrary to be true. 
Hence it is that the book of Ecclesiastes admonishes us in 
this way: "Say not thou, What is the cause that the former 
days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire 
wisely concerning this." This will be evident if we select 
almost at random supposedly superior ages, and we will 
rapidly review three of these, only to see that their blessings 
and comforts are inferior to those of our time. 

While the past may have a certain advantage, as we 
have seen earlier in the chapter, because of a greater sim- 
plicity and frugality and consequent contentedness of living, 
nevertheless in the fullness of every sort of blessing and in the 
opportunity, for the enjoyment of every kind of comfort, it 
can not compare with the present. Recall the first century 
of our era, when there was particularly an opportunity to 
come in contact with the Master of all the ages. Aside from 
that single preeminent privilege, there was not much of 
which to boast. There was indeed a considerable luxury. 
We read of Augustus finding Rome a city of brick, and leav- 
ing it a city of marble. We are amazed that a wife of 
Caligula could wear to a wedding a set of emeralds worth 
two million dollars. We are astonished that a spouse of 
Nero could have the five hundred donkeys, constituting her 
train, shod with dainty shoes of silver and gold. It seems 
like a fairy tale, the story of Nero's celebrated Golden House, 

[108] 



FRETFUL PORCUPINES 

which was not only palatial but immense, which contained 
fields, forests and even a miniature lake, which had colon- 
nades each a mile long, which had in its vestibule a colossal 
statue of the emperor 120 feet high, which had halls over- 
laid with gold, and rooms whose walls were completely 
covered with pearls, which had baths of variegated marble 
making the water to appear all the colors of the rainbow, 
which had dining-rooms with ingenious machinery to scatter 
flowers and perfumes upon the guests, and which had a 
spacious dome representing the sky with the stars varying 
their positions according to the facts of nature. But every 
thing of this kind was exceptional, confined to imperialistic 
and high social circles. A few were fabulously rich, while 
the multitudes were in abject poverty. 

Of the million and a half to two million inhabitants in 
the eternal city, only about ten thousand were well-to-do. 
A full million were slaves, and most of the rest were 
plebeians who were worse off than the slaves, hundreds of 
thousands of them being in great destitution. They had 
to be supported by the government in the free distribution 
of corn, and often in largesses of money. In Julius Caesar's 
time, 320,000 at Rome were thus dependent upon the state. 
The common people did not begin to compare with those of 
to-day in independent living. Outside of a favored few, 
there was the most distressing poverty throughout the 
Roman empire, accustomed though we are to associate this 
mighty government with abounding luxury. The fretful 
porcupines should know these facts. 

We reach the same conclusion in another comparison 
which can be made. Macaulay has given us the means for 
drawing a contrast between the present and two and a third 
centuries ago. His well-known third chapter on "the state 

[109] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

of England in 1685' ' gives us suggestive materials. When 
the first trip of what was designated as the Flying Coach 
was made between London and Oxford at the rate of fifty- 
miles a day, the professors and students of the University 
held a jubilee in honor of the event. Some persons almost 
felt it would be injurious to the health to be whirled along so- 
rapidly, but we ride by our railroads in an hour the same 
distance, which they were a whole day in journeying. The 
fast mail was carried on horseback day and night at the 
average speed of five miles an hour. The houses of London 
were not numbered, and the streets were not lighted. There 
were no sanitary measures and arrangements to prevent 
pestilence. Slops were thrown out of windows with little 
regard to pedestrians below. The streets of Bristol with 
thirty thousand people were so narrow, that coaches could 
not enter them with any safety, and for the conveyance 
of goods through them there had to be used trucks drawn 
by dogs. There were no pneumatic tubes, through 
which as now articles could be shot like lightning under the 
ground. The laborer in those good old times received ordi- 
narily four shillings a week for wages, less than a dollar, 
and boarded himself. What would the workman at present 
think of that pittance for a whole week? He gets more 
than seven times that now in England, and in America more 
than fourteen times that, while the increase after the World 
War was prodigious. Hundreds of thousands of working 
families in the time to which we are reverting had meat 
only twice a week, and as many others had it only once a 
week. Some time before this, the kindly Henry the Fourth 
of France was moved to wish, that some day every French 
peasant might be able to have a fat fowl in the pot for his 
Sunday's dinner. Of a total English population of 

[no] 



FRETFUL PORCUPINES 

5,500,000, it was estimated that 1,330,000, nearly one-fourth, 
were not simply poor but paupers. The greater commonality 
is steadily rising, and never did so many have the comforts 
of life as in this favored twentieth century. The historian 
well sums up his famous chapter after this manner: "It is 
now the fashion to place the golden age of England in times 
when noblemen were destitute of comforts, the want of 
which would be intolerable to a modern footman, when 
farmers and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves the very 
sight of which would raise a riot in a modern workhouse, 
when men died faster in the purest country air than they 
now die in the most pestilential lanes of our towns." Par- 
ticularly ought Americans to be contented. In the United 
States laborers live like kings, and few there are who can not 
have meat every day, while their homes are built and fur- 
nished in a way that would have seemed palatial not so very 
long ago. Moreover, there are all these conveniences, which 
are peculiar to the last hundred years, and which so ma- 
terially contribute to the general felicity. Among the things 
which those of a century ago did not have are gas and elec- 
tric light, sewing-machines and reapers, railroads and trolley 
lines, telegraph and telephone, ocean cable and wireless 
telegraphy, automobiles and airplane. As the Psalmist says 
in a different connection : 

"This is the Lord's doing; 
It is marvelous in our eyes. ' ' 

Recalling once more the beginnings of Pilgrim history, 
we learn that our forefathers who landed at Plymouth in 
1620 had a great deal less to make them satisfied than we 

[in] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

have, and yet they did not murmur, they were not, as we 
often are amid more fortunate surroundings, like fretful 
porcupines. They experienced the cold and rigor of winter, 
and, as they scouted around for a permanent landing place, 
the salt ocean spray froze upon them till their clothes, to use 
their own expression, were "like coats of iron." Frequently 
at night, on their testimony, they did not know where they 
were to get their breakfast. For two and three months together 
they had no bread, but eating clams they thanked God for 
what they had ' ' of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures 
hid in the sand." But even with this Scriptural and Provi- 
dential provision made for the supply of their needs, they did 
not always have sufficient. We read of their staggering from 
very faintness because of a lack of suitable food. They had 
to defend themselves against treacherous Indians. While 
the men built crude houses from the forest primeval, the 
women had to go out in the cleared field to plant corn. All 
likewise had to work with heavy hearts, for within a year, 
half of the hundred composing their small community lay in 
their graves, which had to be leveled and sown with grass- 
seed and wheat, lest the red mounds should tell to the savage 
enemy the tragic story of their depletion and weakness. 

Under such circumstances were they thankful and con- 
tented? It was by those very Pilgrims that the first Thanks- 
giving was appointed. When they had gathered their initial 
crop of Indian maize, they were called together at the time 
of harvesting that they might rejoice together. That their 
good cheer might be more complete, Governor Bradford 
sent four men out after game, and thus originated a custom, 
which has developed into a national festival. Surely we, 
circumstanced so much better than they, and with the in- 

[112] 



FRETFUL PORCUPINES 

numerable blessings wrapt up in our advanced Christian 
civilization, ought to be profoundly grateful, with all un- 
worthy murmuring eliminated. 

' ' What change ! through pathless wilds no more 
The fierce and naked savage roams : 
Sweet praise, along the cultured shore, 
Breaks from ten thousand happy homes. ' ' 



["3] 



CHAPTER X 
A Powerful Searchlight 

WE ARE endeavoring to reveal in man defects inter- 
fering with a happy adjustment to the moral order. 
We have been specifying along this line. But we might as 
well make short work of the whole matter by bringing to 
bear on human conduct a great searchlight that will produce 
conviction in the most self-satisfied and self-complacent. 
Some time ago, our government tried to see if a torpedo 
boat out on the water could escape an electric searchlight 
turned upon it from the shore. The idea was to find out its 
capability of eluding an enemy by ascertaining if it could 
evade the blaze of electricity hunting for it here and there 
in a New England harbor. It shot hither and thither, and 
resorted to every kind of rapid naval maneuvering to escape 
the far-seeing eye that sought it out in the darkness. Once 
only did it for a little get out of sight. Not so successful as 
that even is the human spirit endeavoring to hide away from 
the Holy Spirit. Never for a moment can it get under cover 
of the slightest obscurity. All the power of God is put on 
in the working of his searchlight, which illumines the whole 
of life's tempestuous sea, and converts the night into day, 
and there is absolutely no escape from the powerful searching 
of Omniscience. God flashes his convicting truths like light- 
nings of Sinai all around the soul, which can not help feeling 
its sinfulness and guilt. 

[»4] 



A POWERFUL SEARCHLIGHT 

1. We will first have a flashlight from a revealing passage 
of Scripture, for instance, from the nineteenth Psalm, which 
closes after this fashion : 

1 'Who can discern his errors? 

Clear thou me from hidden faults. 

Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins." 

Under the expose of such searching words, even a saint of 
God feels his unworthiness. David their author did, though 
a man after God's own heart in the main. He realized that 
he was full of slumbering potencies for evil. He recognized 
that he was predisposed to the sinful. Canon Farrar, writer 
of the graphic ' ' Life of Christ ' ' and of other volumes, in one 
of his American discourses said, "It is only with a shudder 
that even the saint of God can look into the abysmal deeps 
of his own personality." Luther, noble Reformer though 
he was, was accustomed to exclaim, i ' Oh my sins, my sins ! ' ' 
The holiest on earth have left on record expressions of the 
deepest contrition, and the "Confessions" of Augustine the 
great church father are famous. We all should be conscious 
of the fact that the heart is like mystical Babylon, which 
John in his Revelation compared to "a cage of every unclean 
and hateful bird." But these foul birds of sin should be 
destroyed, we should not tolerate them for a moment. We 
should not allow them to get lodgment even in or about the 
temple of the soul. It has been quaintly but truthfully 
remarked, that we can not prevent the birds from flying 
over our heads, but that, we can keep them from building 
their nests in our hair. Or, as the abbess Ana was made 
by a poet to say to King John: 

["5] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

"We can not hinder the passing 

Of a wild- winged bird overhead; 

But well may we keep her from building 

Her nest in our garden, she said." 

There will come to us temptations, but they can be resisted 
and repelled, and that fact fixes human responsibility. 

Take what are named as "hidden faults," and they con- 
demn even the very best. They are so subtle, they may be 
simply in thought. There is, for instance, the inner spirit of 
hate. It is not expressed, it merely rankles deep down in 
the soul. It does not take shape in malicious act, it is kept 
concealed. Or the secret sin may be in word. It is the sly 
spreading of an evil report, it is the bare insinuation. It is 
the whisper at one's back to his disadvantage. It is the 
plausible word spoken in trade and meant to deceive. So, too, 
the hidden fault may be in deed. An article is sold for more 
than it is worth, if detection seems unlikely. The place of 
sin is visited, if it can be done without the knowledge of 
others. Job speaks of one who 

"Waiteth for the twilight, 
Saying, No eye shall see me; 
And he disguiseth his face." 

The all-seeing eye of God is forgotten. The omnipresence of 
the Infinite was forcibly impressed upon the mind of David 
in the Psalm under consideration by a view of nature. The 
heavens were contemplated, and though there was no speech 
nor language nor sound of voice, the unseen silent Presence 
ivas everywhere felt, and the impression produced was, that 
there is no escaping a Being who is evidently in all his 
works. 

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A POWERFUL SEARCHLIGHT 

A reverent and intelligent survey of God in nature 
always has this effect. We see that every material atom is 
subject to his control. He "weighs the small dust of the 
balance. ' ' He keeps in mind every minutest particle. Though 
millions of starry worlds revolve at his bidding, he does not 
overlook the lily of the field ; he arrays it more gloriously than 
Solomon. A scientist has remarked, that a slight change in 
gravity would effect every flower of the globe, causing the 
upright plant, which can grow well only when erect, to droop, 
and causing the pensive head, which is at its best in that 
position, to lift its face to the sky. Both would thus be 
thrown out of their element by an infinitesimal modification 
of the universal law of attraction and repulsion. They 
would be hindered in their normal development. So that, 
as has been beautifully said, "The whole mass of the earth, 
from pole to pole, and from circumference to center, is 
employed in keeping a snowdrop in the position most suited 
to the promotion of its vegetable health." This well illus- 
trates how the Supreme Being, who swings countless orbs 
through space by gravitation, has an equal and a like care 
for the smallest part of his vast universe. His supervision 
is seen to extend from star down to atom, and we can see the 
truth of the Biblical statements, their scientific truth even, 
that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the Father's 
notice, and that he numbers the very hairs of our head. 

His moral government has just as wide a sweep. He 
takes cognizance of every deed, and word, and thought. He 
is no more circumscribed in providence than in nature. That 
is what the Psalmist realized, when he turned his attention 
from the heavens to his heart, when he prayed to be cleared 
from hidden faults. He had the same sense of the omnipres- 
ent God, when he watched the sun rising in splendor, and 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

sweeping in majesty round the entire circuit. " There is 
nothing hid," he said, "from the heat thereof." Its rays 
penetrated the deepest and darkest ravines. This manifestly 
seemed to the sacred writer an image of the Sun of Right- 
eousness searching out every nook and corner of the soul. 
There are no heart depths to which the light of God's coun- 
tenance does not reach. Our secret sins, it is said elsewhere, 
are in the full blaze of that searching light. As the philo- 
sophic Kant was impressed with two things, he said, "the 
starry heaven above, the moral law within," so was it with 
the Psalmist, who saw no escape from ' ' the law of the Lord, ' ' 
anymore than from the law of nature, and it was as he con- 
templated both, that he trembled in view of his hidden faults. 
For a similar reason should all be impressed with their 
shortcomings. As no particle of matter is beyond the mighty 
sway of gravity, as no low valley is unlighted by the sun, so 
there is no little sin which can escape Omnipresence, and 
there is no dark soul-depth which the Sun of righteousness 
does not fairly flood with revealing light. 

We reach the same conclusion regarding our "presump- 
tuous sins." We are apt to associate these with the coarse 
and the defiant. We think of those whose delight it is to be 
profane, or to say as shocking things as possible, in the pres- 
ence of Christians. We picture to our minds Alexander the 
Great in that mad revel from which he died. We are 
amazed, as after fi whole night's carousal, he began anew in 
the morning with twenty companions, whose health individ- 
ually and collectively he pledged with the sparkling wine, 
and as, not satisfied with this, he called for Hercules' cup, 
which was noted for its largeness and which he repeatedly 
drank off, until he fell to the floor never to rise again. That 
is what we are disposed to call presumptuous sinning, and 

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A POWERFUL SEARCHLIGHT 

it is, but it is not that of which we are in special danger. 
Presumptuous sinning may be of a less aggravating type ap- 
parently, as we infer from an example given in the Bible. 
It had been describing how atonement could be made for 
various sins, and then added that if one sinned "with a high 
hand," he should be "cut off." A case of transgression in 
this line was next recorded, and what was it ? Was it murder 
which had been committed ? Was it anything gross ? No, but 
a man gathered some sticks on the sabbath, and that under 
the peculiar circumstances was a presumptuous sin for which 
there could be no expiation, he was stoned to death. Was it 
something so terrible? Not of itself. Its presumptuousness 
consisted in its deliberateness, after there had been the 
express command that absolutely no work should be done on 
the holy day. It was a little thing, but it had in it the very 
essence and quintessence of rebellion. It was as if a citizen 
during a state of necessary martial law should defy the 
government by refusing to stay temporarily indoors; he is 
rightfully shot if he appears on the street, though ordinarily 
such appearance would be entirely proper. It was as if a 
child should be told not to touch a certain article, and as if 
he should thereupon defiantly do the very thing forbidden. 
No parent could let such presumptuous disobedience go 
unrebuked and unpunished. A student can make an issue 
with an instructor on a triviality of itself, but we all know 
how the battle must be fought out right there, before there 
can be a restoration of normal relations between the two. 

A soul may show its rebelliousness to God by some com- 
paratively insignificant action. Proud Naaman rebelled 
against washing seven times in the Jordan, when he had so 
much clearer streams at home. The intimation is that he 
would have done some "great thing." But his refusal at 

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OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

first simply to "wash and be clean' ' proved as incontestably 
as disobedience to a greater command could have done, that 
he did not have the proper spirit to receive the blessing. We 
can draw the line, for example, at the Scriptural "washing 
of regeneration," at the baptism that is specifically com- 
manded, as we assert that the application of water, whether 
more, or less, can not possibly do us any good. Our attitude 
here should be that of Mary regarding her divine Son, when 
she quietly advised, "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." 
Otherwise we are sinning presumptuously, and all the more 
so when there is shed upon the matter the splendor of the 
heavens, for we must remember continually the setting of the 
pregnant words, in a Psalm which alternates the view be- 
tween nature and the heart. Consider for a moment the 
greatness of the Being, who is ignored and defied. It is He 
who created all things, who swung into existence over two 
hundred million blazing suns. As the Psalmist soared in 
imagination from star to star, and from orb to orb, he was 
impressed with his littleness, and he pleaded to be kept from 
presumptuous sinning against the great Ood of the universe, 
whose resplendent glories could not be adequately portrayed. 
2. Having had our first flashlight from a typical portion of 
the searching Word, we will have our second from the 
Master's eyes, which are even more revealing. Very sug- 
gestive is that New Testament statement, "And the Lord 
turned, and looked upon Peter. ' ' Gibbon says that history is 
"little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and mis- 
fortunes of mankind." The general impression is, that it is 
only a record at the best of great military achievements, or 
at least of the more outward and striking march of events. 
But so little a thing as a look may have immense significance, 
and also great power. When, in the early part of the fifteenth 

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A POWERFUL SEARCHLIGHT 

century at the council of Constance, the emperor Sigismund 
violated his contract with the reformer Huss, who had been 
solemnly assured that his liberty should not be interfered 
with if he would come to a conference, and yet who was con- 
demned to death on that very occasion, — when the noble 
martyr had said, "I came hither relying on the public faith 
and safe-conduct of the emperor, not to be tried, but to give 
a reason for my faith," and when with this deliverance he 
fixed his eyes directly upon the imperial Majesty, Sigismund 
blushed. That look of shame under appealing eyes was very 
properly chronicled, for it spoke volumes as to the righteous- 
ness and truth of the great reformatory cause, from which 
has grown Protestantism in its full strength and glory. More 
than a hundred years after this, at the celebrated Diet of 
Worms, that historic blush was remembered to Luther's 
benefit. Charles the Fifth was urged by the papal party 
to rescind the safe-conduct which had been granted by him 
to the distinguished German theologian, but he refused as he 
replied, "I do not wish to blush as did Sigismund." 

A look, therefore, can carry strong condemnation, scath- 
ing rebuke, solemn warning. Its appeal to conscience, to 
the motive of fear, is all right. We are very properly re- 
minded of Damocles of old, who sat at a fine banquet with 
Dionysius the Tyrant four centuries before the Christian 
era. Rare were the wines, rich were the viands, but over 
his head was suspended by a single hair a naked sword. 
Damocles sat at a festive table loaded with every thing 
to enjoy, but only a hair intervened between him and eternity. 
In the suddenness of the summons often made upon us to 
go hence, we are sitting under a very sword of Damocles, 
swinging above us by a very slender and brittle thread, by 
a silver cord that is easily severed, as a slight cold unexpec- 

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OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

tedly developes into pneumonia, as a rushing electric or 
motor car in an instant dashes out our life. We can, accord- 
ingly, well allow ourselves to be, like Noah, "moved with 
godly fear." 

It was not, however, this kind of appeal which was made 
to Peter, when he was searched by the Master's look. His 
heart was broken, and he went out from his threefold denial 
to weep bitterly, because eyes of infinite compassion and grief 
were directed toward him with a pathos that was silent but 
effective. The Lord does not always bring to bear some tre- 
mendous outward influence, but often that which is more 
quiet. He turns and looks upon us ; that is all, but our 
future as immortal souls may depend upon how we receive 
that look, which may occupy but a short time. If our eyes, 
so to speak, catch and hold his, if there is the recognition 
of faith whereby our spirits go out in penitence and love 
and loyalty to his outreaching, divinely-yearning nature; if 
there is the contact of personal communion, we are saved 
then and there. But if we do not heed the look, which at 
some religious crisis we feel is searching us through and 
through, that failure to respond to the mute and perhaps 
brief appeal of the Master may be decisive of destiny. A 
little thing was the blush of Sigismond, but that was a look 
of being consciously in the wrong, and was full of significance. 
A small matter was the sad and tender glance of Christ toward 
Peter, but that was a look of life everlasting, so powerfully 
suggestive as to break up the fountain of tears which had 
been sealed. The inference is that we should be careful at 
these critical moments, when we are very easily turned this 
way or that. 

The fact is, that our futures are shaped secularly as well 
as spiritually by what at the time seem to be trifles. Gibbon 

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A POWERFUL SEARCHLIGHT 

relates that a spider's web, woven across the mouth of a cave 
in which Mohammed concealed himself at a critical juncture of 
his affairs, was the means of saving that false prophet 's life. 
It was an eventful moment when his enemies, searching every 
cavern, passed the fugitive's hiding-place by, because an 
insect had swung across the opening a fragile door. Had it 
not been for that, the cave would have been entered, and, 
as the historian adds, "the lance of an Arab might have 
changed the history of the world." Had it not been for the 
spider's web that disarmed suspicion as to any human being 
hiding within, in all probability Mohammedanism with its 
two hundred million adherents would never have been. So, 
too, the father of our country was saved to this nation by an 
incident, which at the time did not seem so momentous. 
George Washington would have become a sailor, had not the 
tearful entreaty of his mother dissuaded him from his youthful 
purpose. Had he gone to sea in accordance with his early 
desire, he very likely would not have led the greatest Revo- 
lution of modern times to a successful issue. Once, it is 
said, upon an invasion of Scotland by the Danes, the garrison 
of the fortress, which was the key to the possession of the 
whole country, all fell asleep. The forces of the enemy 
crept softly along, till one of the soldiers, coming in contact 
with a sharp thistle, involuntarily uttered a sudden cry of 
pain, and that awakened the guards, and after a desperate 
struggle the foe was driven back, and Scottish liberty was 
saved, saved by a thistle, which accordingly has been repre- 
sented ever since by a grateful people in the national coat 
of arms, and the thistle is as dear to Scotland, as the sham- 
rock, with its three leaves emblematic of the Trinity, is to 
Ireland. It is claimed that a curt remark of the emperor 
William to the French ambassador brought on the Franco- 

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OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

German war of 1870. We read that a Moor's theft of a 
garment belonging to a proud Castilian lady led to his being 
slain, and that this gave rise to the conflict between the Cross 
and the Crescent, resulting finally in the expulsion from 
Spain of a race which had created the Alhambra with its 
unrivalled splendors along architectural lines. By such ap- 
parent trifles are the histories of great men, and of nations, 
and of international movements determined. 

In the career of a soul, a little thing may decide its 
eternal welfare. One comes to a point where he feels that 
he should act. Shall he become a Christian, or shall he not? 
He is in a perilous position, for the scales just about balance, 
and it does not take much to tip the beam either way. He 
feels a stir of religious emotion. He has an impression 
gently made upon him, that he ought to begin living differ- 
ently. He has an aching void in his heart. He has a vague 
longing after something that will satisfy the deepest yearn- 
ings of his nature. Why does he have this disturbance of 
feeling? It is because the still small voice is speaking to 
him, it is because there is being turned upon him the search- 
ing, inquiring gaze of the Lord, and failure to respond to 
such an appeal may prove disastrous. When Julius Caesar 
was on the way to the Senate chamber, "A stranger," says 
Froude, "thrust a scroll into his hand, and begged him to 
read it on the spot. It contained a list of the conspirators, 
with a clear account of the plot. He supposed it to be a 
petition, and placed it carelessly among his other papers. 
The fate of the Empire hung upon a thread, but the thread 
was not broken." When there is placed in the hand of any 
the roll of the everlasting gospel, if they do not open it 
and heed its admonitory message, because they imagine it 
contains nothing important for them personally; if they 

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A POWERFUL SEARCHLIGHT 

do not make the slight effort involved in cutting, so to 
speak, the string that wraps it round, if from sheer care- 
lessness they fail to look into the matter, eternal life may be 
lost through failure to act at the decisive moment. Not only 
the fate of empires, but the everlasting welfare of souls, 
often hangs upon a trifle, upon the breaking of a string, 
upon the quick improving of a passing opportunity, upon 
the heeding of a look, upon the response given to a serious 
impression received. The searchlight of a look from the 
Master may determine human destiny. There is salvation in 
a returning look of recognition and of love. The bitten 
Israelites were saved by a look at the brazen serpent elevated 
on high in sight of all. We know how it is in human rela- 
tions. "Face answereth to face," says the inspired proverb, 
and equally look to look, as two persons in some telepathic 
way often understand each other perfectly. There is between 
them a sort of wireless telegraphy which subconsciously re- 
veals a mutual friendliness and even affection. It is similar 
in our delicate relations with the divine. The Lord is not 
slow to catch our inner feelings from the very expression of 
our countenance, and when he sees there penitence and faith, 
he is not going to turn us down, to fail us in any emergency. 
In Highland Scottish annals there is a tale of a woman, 
from unlawful love, of a freebooter murdering her husband, 
and then being ordered by her cruel paramour to destroy a 
loved child, she proceeded to obey. She swung the small 
bundle of humanity out over a precipice, and withdrew him 
without committing the foul crime. She did it a second time, 
and again brought back her arms still clinging to the beloved. 
She was asked why she hesitated, and she replied that each 
time the babe smiled at her, pleased with the, swinging 
motion, and she did not have the heart to resist such an 

["5] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

appeal unconsciously made. Then she was roughly com- 
manded to shut her eyes, and to hurl the child from her, and 
she did to her everlasting shame. In this connection with 
much impressiveness comes to us that verse from Isaiah: 
"Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not 
have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, these may 
forget, yet will not I forget thee." As God sees the look of 
confidence in his children at the end, He will not close His eyes 
and swing them off into a hopeless eternity, but he will draw 
them, smiling their trust to him, closer and closer into his 
embrace at the great crisis of removal hence. Judgment to 
come will have for them no terrors; in their peaceful de- 
parture from this world to the next, perfect love will have cast 
out fear. 



[126] 



CHAPTER XI 
A Dramatic Appeal 

THE MORAL order makes a distinct challenge to man 
to become adjusted thereto. What is the most dramatic 
appeal ever made to humanity? Various answers might be 
given. Some might be inclined to recall a vivid scene from 
our own national history. The debate between Webster and 
Hayne before the Senate of the United States has made a 
lively appeal to the imagination. Art has preserved the 
scene in a well-known painting that hangs from the wall and 
above the platform of Faneuil Hall, which because of Revolu- 
tionary memories in Boston has been called "the cradle of 
liberty." The dignity and majesty of the matchless orator, 
who stood for the northern as against the southern political 
view, impress every observer. His arraignment of a policy 
that could only result in national dismemberment was a phi- 
lippic. His stately plea for the continued union of the States, 
"one and inseparable," was a classic. His tribute to the 
flag, with "not a stripe erased or polluted nor a single star 
obscured," was a ringing call for loyalty. Nothing else is 
comparable with all this, unless it be Paul standing before a 
royal personage of his day, and challenging his attention by 
the dramatic. "King Agrippa, belie vest thou the prophets! 
I know that thou believest. " As with his shackled arm he 
seems to have made an impressive gesture, we can almost 
hear yet the clank of the chain, when he rose to his magni- 
ficent climax, "I would to God, that whether with little or 

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OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

with much, not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, 
might become such as I am, except these bonds." 

1. The apostle first gave his own experience, which he 
related with a glowing and tremendous force. In the 
eighteenth century, when that type of infidelity known as 
deism prevailed in England, Lord Lyttleton, the celebrated 
statesman and author, entered upon a critical study of the 
conversion of Paul, with the purpose of demonstrating from 
that single incident the falsity of Christianity. But as he 
prosecuted his scholarly researches, he himself was con- 
verted, and he was compelled to publish not a deistic but a 
theistic work, which then was regarded as among the ablest 
defenses ever made of a divine revelation. The testimony 
in favor of the Christian religion from the wonderful change 
wrought in Paul alone was so strong as to be irresistible to 
the mind of this great Englishman, who started out to pro- 
duce an infidel book, but who ended by giving a powerful 
argument for Christianity. 

Neither could King Agrippa resist the solid array of 
facts, which Paul gave from his own experience, and most of 
us are equally impressed thereby. How can the remarkable 
revolution of character in the chief of the apostles be ex- 
plained? He had been brought up a Pharisee, and all his 
interests were bound up in his remaining such. He was al- 
ready a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the highest court 
in the land. He had enjoyed the advantage of sitting at the 
feet of the most famous instructor of the time, the learned 
Gamaliel. He was entrusted with the most important work 
that could be laid upon any shoulders in the first century, 
the uprooting of a heresy which has since become the religion 
of the whole civilized world. Honor, wealth, every selfish 
consideration would prompt him to persevere in the course 

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A DRAMATIC APPEAL 

which he had marked out for his life's career. And yet he 
suddenly adopted a faith, which, Professor A. P. Peabody 
of Harvard said, "was held in at least as low esteem as 
Mormonism is with us/' and the acceptance of which must 
have seemed "as strange and abnormal as it would be for 
one of our divines, or judges, or princely merchants to join 
the motley community of Brigham Young. He had not a 
friend who was not ashamed of him, and whose respect for 
him was not changed into contempt." How can it be 
accounted for, when we remember the kind of person he was? 
He had breadth of mind, and is reckoned by many the 
greatest man that ever lived. Testimony from such a one is 
worth something, and he asserted that at noonday, with 
companions about him, and when he was doing what he 
verily believed to be right, and under circumstances where 
he was not likely to be deluded, he and others with him saw a 
light brighter than the sun, and heard a voice which to the 
rest sounded like thunder, but which to him spoke plainly 
of wrong and of what he should henceforth do, and that he 
was not "disobedient" to the heavenly vision, though per- 
secution, and all that was undesirable, was to be his lot. He 
in short declared that there was a reality to the new religion 
which he had accepted, and when Agrippa heard his story 
and considered its source, he of course was impressed, was 
almost persuaded, as the old version says, to be a Christian, 
much as he may have tried to hide his inner feelings by an 
assumed scepticism. 

There is similar evidence for Christianity to-day, only 
stronger because of the increased number of witnesses. 
Here is a banker, who is not a light-headed fanatic by any 
means, and he stands before his fellows an acknowledged 
Christian, and this is true of some of the greatest financiers 

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OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

that America has produced. The same may be said of many 
railroad magnates, who have been veritable wizards in 
accomplishing transportation results. Here is a lawyer, or a 
doctor, the peer of any in his profession, and he is known as 
an open disciple of Christ. Here is a merchant, or a manu- 
facturer, who does as large a business as any other in the 
city, if not larger, and he is committed to the cause of re- 
ligion. The great majority of college presidents and instruc- 
tors and students, and a preponderance of scientific authorities 
even where there is apt to be the most scepticism, are 
avowed Christians. And so have been chief magistrates 
of the greatest country on the globe, like Woodrow Wilson, 
and Taft, and Roosevelt, and McKinley, not to mention 
others of our Presidents. Standing alongside of these have 
been rulers of the mightiest nations and empires of Europe. 
Whether all these, who have been designated, have been 
always consistent or not, they at any rate have bowed their 
intellects if not their hearts to the King of kings. Coming 
nearer home, we have neighbors and friends, not mad en- 
thusiasts at all, who deliberately and solemnly will tell us, 
that they know whereof they speak, when they testify to the 
converting power of the gospel. We have seen characters 
revolutionized by what has been termed a saving faith. 
These things have not occurred in a corner, they have taken 
place before our very eyes, and we must feel the force of this 
argument, of this personal testimony for Christ from indivi- 
duals of well-balanced minds and transformed lives. 

2. Aside from Paul's experience, there was another 
argument which the apostle presented, when he stood before 
King Agrippa, and that was the fulfillment of prophecy. 
"Believest thou the prophets?' ' he asked, with an expressed 

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A DRAMATIC APPEAL 

assurance that the answer could be only in the affirmative. 
With what strength predictions can be marshalled, when 
coupled or linked with subsequently transpiring and agree- 
ing facts ! There is nothing vague and indefinite about them, 
but they are minute and exact, unlike for instance the classic 
Delphic Oracle, which once said to Croesus, who had con- 
sulted it, "If Croesus crosses the Halys, and prosecutes a war 
with Persia, a mighty empire will be overthrown," and it 
was even so, but it was his own empire. The Oracle had so 
worded its wisdom, that, whatever the issue, it would not 
have to recede and retract. The Scriptural prophecies are 
not thus equivocal, capable of being taken either way, 
worded with the very idea of deceiving. They go straight 
to the mark, and there is no misunderstanding their import. 
Look, for example, at the gradual growth of the Mes- 
sianic revelation as depicted in our systems of theology and 
in our very cyclopaedias. Away back in Genesis, at the be- 
ginning of human history, the promise was made that the 
seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent. 
What did it mean? It manifestly pointed to some future 
deliverer, yet to appear in the line of humanity, and in the 
fulness of times the Son of man did come, born of a woman. 
The prophecy was next made more specific in the promise to 
Abraham, "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be 
blessed.' ' That narrowed the limits from which the Messiah 
was to spring. He was to be derived not merely from the 
general race, of the seed of Eve that mother of all, but he was 
to be of Jewish origin, and he was, as it turned out. Still 
farther, of the twelve tribes of Israel, one alone which was 
expressly named was to have the honor of furnishing the 
ancestry of the coming One : 

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OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

' ' The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, 
Until Shiloh come." 

< 

And so it actually was, Jerusalem was not destroyed by the 
Roman Titus, the Jewish rule as preserved in Judah did not 
entirely disappear till the year 70, subsequent to the advent 
of the Lord. After the tribe, the particular family in the 
tribe was indicated, when David was assured that his house 
should be established "for ever," and "son of David" thus 
became only another name for the expected Christ, whose line- 
age was from that identical king, from whom, the long-previous 
declaration had been, that it would be. A hazardous thing 
it was for the prophets to be so specific, if they were not sure 
of what they said. They, however, became more and more 
definite. Micah says, that out of Bethlehem (that was get- 
ting to be very exact) should come he "whose goings forth 
are from the old, from everlasting, ' ' and that little town was 
the Lord's birthplace. These are corroborations which 
(whatever critics may say) the inspired writers themselves 
thought worthy of mention. 

Were these mere coincidences? Some such there might 
be, but there could not very well be as many as there are of 
actual agreements between prediction and fact. These are 
well-nigh innumerable, as will appear from specimens cited. 
Prediction in Zechariah: "Behold, thy king cometh unto 
thee; . . lowly, and riding upon an ass." Fact in John 
regarding the triumphant entry: "And Jesus, having found 
a young ass, sat thereon." Prediction in Isaiah : "He openeth 
not his mouth." Fact in Matthew: "And he gave him no 
answer, not even to one word." Prediction in the Psalms: 
"In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." Fact in 

[132] 



A DRAMATIC APPEAL 

Matthew: "One of them ran, and took the sponge, and filled 
it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink." 
Prediction in the Psalms: "And upon my vesture do they 
cast lots." Fact in John regarding the seamless coat :"They 
said therefore one to another, Let us not rend it, but cast 
lots for it, whose it shall be." Prediction in Exodus regard- 
ing the Paschal lamb : "Neither shall ye break a bone there- 
of." Fact in John regarding the Lamb of God: "When 
they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they 
break not his legs." Prediction in Zechariah: "They shall 
look unto me whom they have pierced." Fact in John: 
"Howbeit one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side." 
Prediction in Isaiah: "And was numbered with the trans 
gressors." Fact in Mark: "And with him they crucify two 
robbers." Prediction in Isaiah: "With the rich in his 
death." Fact in Matthew: "There came a rich man from 
Arimathea, named Joseph, .... and asked for the body of 
Jesus. . . and laid it in his own new tomb." Prediction 
in the Psalms: "Neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to 
see corruption." Fact in Luke: "Why seek ye the living 
among the dead? He is not here, but is risen." Prediction 
in the Psalms: "Thou hast ascended on high." Fact in the 
Acts: "As they were looking, he was taken up; and a cloud 
received him out of their sight." One never knew of so 
many coincidences, and that, too, with hundreds of years 
intervening. We can check up the list for ourselves. Nor 
has the half been told, but sufficient has been given in this 
rapid survey to compel belief in honest seekers after truth. 
With such an accumulation of evidence, Agrippa could 
not have been otherwise than almost persuaded, for he was 
cognizant of these things. He was "expert," we read, "in 
all customs and questions which are among the Jews;" that 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

is, he was familiar with their sacred writings, with the very 
predictions to which we have been calling attention. He 
must have been acquainted with the events in Christ's life 
fulfilling these prophecies. Nothing was ' 'hidden' ' from 
him, as Paul said, who added, "for this hath not been done 
in a corner." Agrippa's near relatives had been favored 
with a very intimate connection with the Lord. His great 
grandfather, Herod the Great, was the monster who killed 
the innocents at the birth of the divine Babe in Bethlehem. 
His great uncle, Herod Antipas, had murdered John the 
Baptist, suffering such pangs of remorse therefor, that when 
he afterward heard of the miracles of Jesus he declared 
aghast that John had risen from the dead. Agrippa's own 
father had with the sword beheaded James, the brother of 
John, and had sought the life of Peter also, and doubtless 
would have made other martyrs, had not his career been 
cut short by that dreadful disease, which is described in 
Holy Writ as being "eaten of worms," his corrupted flesh 
falling away piecemeal till death came to his relief. 

With these memories still fresh, and with the tragedy of 
the cross yet recent, and with the resurrection and ascension 
triumphantly proven; with none of these things "hidden" 
from King Agrippa, we may be sure he was almost per 
suaded, lightly though he may have treated the earnest 
appeal to him, and though he may have said ironically and 
perhaps with a curl of the lip, "With but little persuasion 
thou wouldest fain make me a Christian." To us there is 
the same overwhelming evidence, with such additional testi- 
mony as must accumulate through the ages. The most con- 
spicuous prediction of all was one whose fufillment it was 
not Agrippa's to behold. Isaiah had prophesied, "All the 
ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God," and 

[i34] 



A DRAMATIC APPEAL 

over and over again the world-wide dominion of Chris^ 
tianity was predicted, and slowly but surely, and yet 
swiftly as God counts time, the facts are verifying what was 
thus spoken of old. There is no such all-pervading influence 
to-day, there is no such extensive realm, as the kingdom of 
the Lord; and year by year his reign is widening, until we 
can believe that eventually the written word shall be fully 
accomplished. So, too, regarding the prophecies of the 
dispersion of the Jews among all nations to be a byword and 
a hissing everywhere, Agrippa in his day had not seen these 
fulfilled as we have in startling detail. Nor had he wit- 
nessed the uplifting influence of the gospel, as we have 
observed it through many centuries. We must thoroughly be- 
lieve in the Bible and Christianity, when we study these in 
the light of history so exactly verifying prophecy. 

3. There were in the Herodian family endings, which 
must have made the resurrection hope, of which Paul spoke, 
exceedingly attractive to Agrippa. To give a single illustra- 
tion, to which passing reference has already been made, the 
king could not have very well forgotten the sad experience 
of his own father in that very city Caesarea. It was in the 
theater there, possibly in the same building where the son 
listened to the apostle. It was likewise under circumstances 
of similar "pomp," for, says the Jewish historian, "he put 
on a garment made wholly of silver, and of a contexture 
truly wonderful, and came into the theater early in the 
morning; at which time the silver of his garment, being 
illuminated by the first reflection of the sun's rays upon it, 
shone out after a surprising manner, and was so resplendent 
.... his flatterers cried out, one from one place and another 
from another (though not for his good) that he was a god." 
A god! a god! That was the shout which went up, and be- 

[135] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

cause he accepted the impious compliment he was stricken 
down with a mortal disease, and as he was being carried out 
of the theater, he cast his eyes back over the great assembly, 
and said with remorse, according to Josephus, "Providence 
thus reproves the lying words you just now said to me ; and 
I, who was by you called immortal, am immediately to be 
hurried away by death," and he did thus die, or, as the 
book of Acts says, "An angel of the Lord smote him, because 
he gave not God the glory ; and he was eaten of worms, and 
gave up the ghost." 

Agrippa must have recalled the ghastly end of this his 
own father in that very city and possibly in the audience 
chamber where Paul preached to him so grandly. There was 
nothing in that hopeless death like the apostle's victorious 
"To die is gain." After the manner of Socrates who spoke 
on immortality, Paul enlarged upon the thought of a glorious 
resurrection for the redeemed of the Lord, and the king 
must have shuddered in contrasting the awful end of his 
own father with the tranquil end of the righteous. The 
difference now between the triumphant or at least peaceful 
departure of Christians, and the stolid if not despairing and 
sometimes tragic exit from this world of the unregenerate, 
must make upon us its impression. 

4. In considering, as we have just been doing, the con- 
trasting ends of human lives, we might seem here to have 
come to a natural conclusion, but we have not, for there is 
one more thing which adds to the dramatic nature of our 
religious appeal, and that is, as stated in Holy Writ, "after 
death is the judgment." Equalling the scene of Paul before 
Agrippa is that of the same apostle before Felix and Dru- 
silla, to whom "he reasoned of righteousness, self-control, 
and the judgment to come. ' ' These two were closely linked 

[136] 



A DRAMATIC APPEAL 

together, but not in a holy wedlock. Quite reverse was the 
case, and the judgment, of which there were thunderings on 
that memorable occasion, came in part to the former in that 
he was made to tremble, in that, as we are expressly in- 
formed, he was terrified, having by no means in his experi- 
ence the felicity which his name signifies. To his fair but 
guilty paramour, it came in a more tragic way a few years 
afterward, when together with a son she had bourne to the 
unhappy Felix she perished in the eruption of Vesuvius, that 
catastrophe which in 79 A. D. covered Herculaneum with lava 
that has hardened to be like rock, and which buried Pompeii 
in ashes that are being gradually removed. To the witnesses 
of that tragedy, it seemed as if the dread day had come, when 
the heavens were passing away with a great noise and the 
elements were melting with fervent heat, as Scripture had 
predicted they would, giving us at least a most vivid picture 
of the judgment, which Drusilla did not escape, at any rate 
in its historic forerunner. 

To lead her out of the preternatural darkness, she had 
no blind Nydia, whom Bulwer in his "Last Days of Pompeii" 
introduced with such fine effect into his romance. The latter 
by her very infirmity of sightlessness had been prepared to 
grope her way through the Stygian blackness which so sud- 
denly came, and she did guide unerringly Glaucus and his 
sweetheart to the sea and to safety. There was no one thus 
to conduct Drusilla through a murky and sulphurous gloom, 
which was much greater than that of a natural night. The 
distinguished romancer, who says his portrayal of the event 
was "very little assisted by invention," gives facts which 
must have been stranger than fiction, and which must have 
been terribly realistic to the former companion of Felix. 
Selecting two or three snatches of description, she must have 

[*37] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

heard "the rumbling of the earth beneath, and the groaning 
waters of the tortured sea/' and "the grinding and hissing 
murmur of the escaping gases through the chasms of the dis- 
tant mountain." From time to time she must have been 
sickened at heart to faintness by "the burst and roar of some 
more fiery and fierce explosion. ' ' She must have been among 
the bewildered fugitives struggling along, "the ashes falling 
upon their heads, the fragmentary stones dashing up in 
sparkles before their feet." But at last she could go no 
farther, and sank to be suffocated. 

Merely pictorial this may be of that which Paul preached 
to the lovely but guilty creature, who, however, must have felt 
that what he said in solemn warning was essentially true. 
There may be at present on the part of the light-hearted an 
attempt to get away from representations of what is serious 
in the consideration of human destiny, but sometimes all this 
should be faced. The book of Ecclesiastes well says, "Rejoice, 

young man, in thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy 
heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou, that 
for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." 

What makes the solemn appeal the most dramatic is that 
it can be resisted. Many a one has said with Felix, ' ' Go thy 
way for this time, and when I have a convenient reason, 

1 will call thee unto me. ' ' But this more opportune moment 
never comes, and at any rate any given rejection may have 
in it the element of finality. Sooner or later in every one's 
career, the will acquires a permanent bent. There comes a 
fixedness of character, a trend of life, from which it is morally 
certain there will never be a change. One person at the age 
of twenty, another at thirty, becomes substantially what he 
will always remain, with a steadily decreasing prospect for the 

[US] 



A DRAMATIC APPEAL 

better as the years advance. This is not only a Scriptural but 
a psychological truth, as demonstrated by observation, and 
one can note it for himself. Sin is voluntary, it is lodged in 
the imperial will, which even Omnipotence can not forcibly 
subdue, for even to Him all things are not, strictly speaking, 
possible. He can not make five of two and two, nor a square 
circle. As there are these arithmetrical and geometrical so 
there are for the very Almighty spiritual impossibilities. 
He could not coerce the human will. Every man has in his 
soul a Gibraltar, absolutely impregnable from without. He 
alone holds the key to the inner citadel of his heart. 
He can and does shut out therefrom his Lord and 
Maker. With superlative importance has he thus been 
endowed. He has been made the architect of his 
own fortune, the master of his destiny. He is con- 
scious of this power. He knows that he can, if he will, suc- 
cessfully resist the omnipotent God. An immediate response, 
therefore, to the appeal of the cross becomes imperative in 
order to safety. Archimedes, the great mathematical genius 
of more than 200 years before the Christian era, requested 
his friends, after his decease, to ' ' place over his tomb a sphere 
containing a cylinder, inscribing it with the ratio which the 
containing solid bears to the contained." To mark the last 
resting-place at Mt. Auburn of the eminent naturalist, 
Agassiz, there was brought from his native Switzerland a 
boulder. The stone, says his wife, was "so monumental in 
form that not a touch of the hammer was needed to make it 
fit for its purpose." Very fitting monuments are both of 
these for the mathematical Archimedes and the scientific 
Agassiz. But the Christian can desire to have erected over 
his remains nothing more suitable than the cross, with an 

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OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

inscription of the relation there is between this emblem of 
salvation and the eternity of happiness for which he hopes 
in the name of the great Redeemer whom he has consciously 
accepted. 



[140] 



CHAPTER XII 

Damascus Blades 

WHEN we think of human weakness in relation to the 
moral order, there is perhaps a disposition to feel 
discouraged. But there is recuperative power in man. He 
is capable of rebound and recovery. 

It is said that a genuine Damascus Blade can be bent 
double without harm. When the pressure is removed, it 
springs back straight as ever. That is true steel, so keen as 
to cut clean and smooth gauze of such fineness as can scarcely 
be seen when floating lightly in the, atmosphere. Every reader 
of "The Talisman" by Sir Walter Scott will recall a scene 
in that historical romance. When Richard of England, the 
Lion-hearted Crusader, and Saladin the illustrious Saracen 
met at a sparkling fountain in the valley of the Dead Sea, 
felicitously called "The Diamond of the Desert/' the latter 
wanted to see an exhibition of the reputed strength of the 
English King. Thereupon his "glittering broadsword" of 
gigantic size was brought down upon a steel mace resting 
on a block of wood with Titanic force that was like the blow 
of a sledge-hammer or even of our own steam piledriver. and 
the bar of iron was severed as though it had been a tender 
twig. When Saladin was challenged to show what he could 
do with his slender, easily-bending Damascus Blade, he dex- 
teriously drew it across a yielding ' * cushion of silk and down, ' ' 
which fell apart clean cloven. That this exploit was not a 
juggler's trick appeared when a filmy veil in midair was 

[Mi] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

divided by the same finely-tempered weapon into two fluffy 
pieces that were softly wafted in opposite directions with no 
sign of frayed edges. 

The Indian does not choose, a brittle piece of timber for 
his bow. He wants something elastic, so that when he pulls 
the string at arm's length and then loosens his hold, the 
arrow may be sent right to the mark. Draw a weak willow, 
and the feathered weapon feels its way along, deflected by 
every breeze, till it falls upon the ground with a sort of 
feeble flutter. But when there is that which Homer describes 
as 

' ' Fearful was the twang of the silver bow, ' ' 

the arrow cleaves the air like a bullet, and stands upright 
in whatever it pierces. We recall how Ulysses, who devised 
the stratagem of the wooden horse whereby Troy was finally 
taken, how the hero of the Odyssey, the immortal Odysseus, 
which was the Greek for the Latin Ulysses, — how he after 
ten years of wandering at the close of the Trojan war (which 
had lasted ten years) returned to his island home in Ithaca. 
Though recognized after an absence of two decades by his 
faithful Argus, he yet was suspected of being a fraud by the 
suitors of his wife, Penelope, till she proposed a sure test. 
His old bow, which had been left behind, had defied the 
strength of everybody to bend it, but Odysseus grasped it as 
an old friend, and easily strung it, and let fly an arrow 
with the power and accuracy of former days. How that bow 
must have resounded, as it sprung back to its position of 
rest. There must have been the Homeric " twang." What 
is it that makes the Damascus Blade and the bow admirable ? 
It is the elasticity. What sort of character is best? that 
which has some rebound. The strongest men are those, who 

[142] 



DAMASCUS BLADES 

though crushed by some terrific blow spring up again. To 
express this quality in Biblical phrase, there is Paul 's ' ' Smit- 
ten down, yet not destroyed." That takes square issue with 
our familiar expression, "Down and out," which is not true 
of those who have grit and grace. 

1. First, with the human the question is one of breaking 
or bending. Not infrequently it is the former, as persons 
are smitten down and destroyed. Here is one who has been 
embittered by contact with the rough, hard world. He has 
had sad experiences, numerous disappointments, and he con- 
cludes that all mankind are deceitful. In his opinion, most 
people are hypocrites, snakes in the grass, to be trusted no 
sooner than the devil. He goes through life snarling and 
snapping, so to speak; independent, because he can be as 
mean as any. He is ready to take a hand in a business that 
will bring him money, no matter how. He sneers at honesty 
and honor, and says flippantly, that all men have their price, 
and can be bought for more or less; money enough will buy 
the soul of every Christian even. What is the cause of this 
contemptuous spirit? The person with such sentiments has 
had trouble^ and his manhood collapsed under the strain. He 
lacked nerve. Religion is needed to give hopefulness and 
generosity of spirit, to keep one sweet and gracious. The 
divine is needed to give spring to the human. 

Sometimes again, one loses confidence in humanity, and 
concludes to make the most of life by smooth ways and oily 
words. He steals softly around, and is velvety in all his 
methods. He never disagrees with any one; it is always, 
Yes, yes, just so. He is like Pollonius in Shakespeare. "When 
Hamlet called attention to a cloud, "almost in shape of a 
camel," Pollonius assented, "'tis like a camel, indeed." 
When Hamlet proceeded, "Methinks, it is like a weasel," 

[H3] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

there came the echo, "It is backed like a weasel." Then as 
Hamlet added interrogatively, "Or, like a whale?" the ob- 
seauious lord chamberlain said solemnly, "Very like a whale." 
He was bound to be agreeable if he did have to say that a 
cloud looked like a camel, a weasel, and a whale. Such a 
person is the very ideal of politeness. Nevertheless, with one 
arm around your neck in the most affectionate manner, with 
the other he may be trying to give, you a slanderous, deadly 
thrust. Roused into suspicion, you may endeavor to get a 
hold on him, but to no purpose, for he is too slippery. You 
never know in what garb you will find him, for he will slip 
on any cloak, even that of religion, if any thing can be 
gained thereby. A poet has said, 

"He was a man 
Who stole the livery of the court of heaven 
To serve the devil in." 

He thinks all are dishonorable, only it is best to appear 
honorable for one's own advantage. What has induced in 
him such an unfortunate state of mind? He has been de- 
ceived at some time under fair pretenses, and he has not re- 
covered from the blow. Faith in God would have saved his 
faith in humanity. Religion would have given him a health- 
ful rebound, would have put in him recuperative force. 

There are those who have this resiliency, and they are 
much nobler characters. We all recognize it as a sign of 
weakness, when difficulties come sweeping over us, to break 
right down, and to let them carry us into bitterness, open or 
concealed. A strong person does not give way so easily. He 
has a conquering faith, which is essentially religious. Never 
discouraged, he presses on to the goal. A formidable ob- 

[144] 



DAMASCUS BLADES 

stacle rolls down in his path and over top of him, perhaps, 
but though hurled momentarily down, he springs to his feet, 
and with compressed lips and an iron will and a serene up- 
ward look, he moves on to success. William of Orange could 
calmly survey all Europe arrayed against him, and then be- 
lieving thoroughly in his cause and hoping in his God, with 
a steady hand he controlled every opposing force, while he 
marched to England and took the throne. With the same 
kind of spirit Nelson at a crisis cried, "Victory or West- 
minster Abbey!" and it was the former and the latter also, 
while in a conspicuous London Square is a massive monument 
to the illustrious naval hero. 

One needs to learn to bear up under the weight of what 
for the time being may bend him low, and looking away from 
self to the help that comes from above he can say with Pauline 
triumph, ' * I can do all things in Him that strengthened me, ' 9 
while he rises grandly up all the stronger for the trial. A 
plant in the shelter of a cellar, with no sunshine, no wind, is 
puny. Its leaves are pale, and its stalk trembles at the least 
jar, and it is readily broken off. The oak, standing in the 
hot sun, exposed to the sweep of thunder storms, swayed to 
and fro by winter's blizzards, grows up a mighty tree, with 
an enormous trunk and wide-spreading branches, strong 
because weather-beaten. It is the same with character, which 
is strengthened by hardiness, when religion enters into its 
making. The being struck to the ground occasionally does 
no harm, if there is grace in the heart to prevent utter 
prostration of spirit, and to give rebound, so that one can 
say with Milton, 

"He led me on to mightiest deeds, 
Above the nerve of mortal man." 

[MS] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

Whatever the discipline, let the spiritual enter into the 
experience, and though the human may be prostrated, the 
divine gives rebound, and hope springs Phoenix-like out of 
the very ashes of despair, and there is given "a garland for 
ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for 
the spirit of heaviness." Again and again does a beautiful 
Christian spirit rise triumphant over every obstacle. If one 
is rightly tempered he, may bend, but he will never break, 
anymore than a fine Damascus Blade. 

Those who have been tried and tested, who under disci- 
pline have become genuine steel, are the persons of real 
worth in every sphere of life. Along the military line, old 
soldiers are better for the battle than raw recruits. The lat- 
ter may be pretty enough in a general review at some country 
town a thousand miles from the field of conflict. They go 
through the different evolutions handsomely. They present 
a splendid appearance standing in rank, while officers in bril- 
liant uniform gallop up and down in the front. The colonel 
on a fine horse shouts, ' ' Attention, battalion ! ' ' and the regi- 
ment is sublimely silent, while spectators hold their breath 
in awe. ' * Order arms ! ' ' down go a thousand guns with one 
tremendous thud, and the onlookers are thrilled with the 
perfection of the movement. "Present arms!" and there is 
an immediate response with a military precision that is alto- 
gether admirable. ' ' Shoulder arms ! ' ' and up go the thousand 
guns as if by magic, and so finely, that cheers break out spon- 
taneously from the whole assembled multitude. That is all 
very nice, when no enemy is near; but veterans, who have 
seen regular service and who have not been out simply for 
dress parade, are what the General wants, when he marches 
straight upon the foe against drawn bayonets and amid flying 
bullets and bursting shells. The sturdy warriors hear the 

[146] 



DAMASCUS BLADES 

command, Forward! and they move steadily on, if need be, 
4 'into the jaws of death.' ' The veteran is better than the 
young soldier because of the trial aftd discipline which have 
been his. Similarly if we wanted a friend for some emergency, 
we would not choose an inexperienced one, who had never 
seen a dark day. We would desire one, who had trodden 
some of the thorny paths of life, w T ho had been "smitten 
down, yet not destroyed,'' and who, therefore, would know 
just how to help us rise up and shake off the load which 
might be taxing our strength. He has been through the fire, 
he has been refined like gold, until he is master of every 
situation. What if the battle does rage ? He stands cool and 
collected amid the thickest smoke of the conflict. What if 
the tempest does gather with flash of lightning and roll of 
thunder? He can almost ride the storm. He has been so 
tempered that he does not break, he only bends like the 
Damascus Blade. His mettle has been tried till he shows the 
true metal, which is none other than highly tempered steel, 
and he is then in fine fettle to be serviceable to his fellows. 

2. We come thus more positively to the divine, where 
there is always the utmost resiliency. Never did another have 
the range of experience which Christ had. He left heaven 
above, he came down to the earth below. Who can picture 
the Father's house of many mansions, upon which he turned 
his back? The Moorish princes of Granada had a palace, 
whose beauties have been the wonder of the world, and whose 
ruins are, after the lapse of five hundred years, the one spot 
in Spain like a charm attracting all travellers. We read of 
the Alhambra's "slender columns rivalling the taper palm- 
tree; walls whose stones were cut and pierced into a trellis- 
work, resembling in its exquisite delicacy lace or fine ivory 
carving ; domes honey-combed with azure and vermilion cells, 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

and bright with stalactites of dropping gold ; groves of orange 
and myrtle, clustering round the marble basins in which 
cool, silver fountains plashed their merry music. " But this 
fairy splendor, which it was mine to see in 1905, is sur- 
passed by the glory of the "house not made with hands/ ' 
that the Lord left behind. The temple of Diana, expressly to 
view the site of which a considerable journey was taken by 
me from Smyrna to Ephesus, contained one hundred and 
twenty-seven marble columns sixty feet high, and each the gift 
of a king. There is a temple wherein every choice spirit is a 
sculptured pillar, and these polished stones are a hundred and 
forty and four thousand, a great multitude which can not be 
numbered, and this all was sacrificed, and other glory ineffable. 
Did Babylon have bronze gates? Every gate in the jasper 
walls is a solid pearl. Did Antioch have a street paved with 
blocks of white marble? The city above has streets of gold. 
Is the green earth attractive? There is a better country, a 
very Beulah land. Is a lofty mountain, lifting itself in 
serenity and purity into the blue sky, sublime? It is not so 
majestic as Mount Zion rising from the heavenly plains into 
an atmosphere of celestial sweetness and clearness. Are the 
prismatic colors painted on the storm-cloud to be admired? 
They do not begin to compare with the rainbow that is a 
complete circle, "round about the throne, like an emerald/' 
Is a river flowing through a valley a delight to the eyes? It 
does not equal the river of life "bright as crystal," winding 
through the sweet fields of Eden. Does one love to sit by a 
lake or on the beach of old ocean ? Better than either is the 
shining shore of the shimmering sea of glass. Is one enrap- 
tured as he contemplates the starry worlds sweeping round 
in their orbits? "The Father of lights," with whom the 
Son was, is at the very center of all these glorious orbs, whick 

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DAMASCUS BLADES 

circle round and round him in infinite variety of color. Such 
were the transcendent splendors which the Lord abandoned. 

To what did he come in assuming the garb of mortals? 
He took "the form of a servant, being made in the likeness 
of men." He put off his royal habiliments, he laid aside his 
crown. He abdicated his throne; not like the Roman em- 
peror Diocletian, who was tired of the intrigues of the court, 
and was glad to retire to the farm, where he says he found 
more satisfaction in raising garden vegetables than in ruling 
an empire ; not like Charles the Fifth, who weary of constant 
war gave the reins of government into the hands of his son, 
and hastened to hide himself in a Spanish monastery, where, 
says the historian, he was ' ' quite content to listen to the hum 
of the restless world as to the roar of a far-off sea." The 
King of kings did not search out in his wide realm of the 
universe this solitary little globe, whereon to find freedom 
from care and anxiety. Unlike the other monarchs, to whom 
reference has been made, he came hither to assume new 
responsibilities. The earth for him was no quiet, pleasant 
retreat. He was like Alfred the Great, who in peasant's 
raiment, stripped of the ensigns of royalty, wandered among 
his subjects, his life in continual jeopardy; like this English 
monarch, who disguised as a harper entered the very ranks of 
his enemies, that he might learn how to subdue them to good 
government. Peter the Great is praised for the humiliation 
to which he submitted for the good of Russia. That he might 
have a navy to protect and defend his country, he went to 
Amsterdam as a common laborer to learn ship-building. He 
toiled as an ordinary workman, receiving his wages every 
Saturday night. He cooked his own dinner, he lodged in a 
garret ; it was royalty in the habit of him who serves. With 
far higher motives the Lord exchanged his kingdom for the 

[M9] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

life of a menial. His condescension was amazing. He was 
born in a stable, he was cradled in a manger. His infant life 
was saved only by flight. He grew up in obscure Nazareth. 
He was a carpenter, making plows and yokes. He was 
poor, not having where to lay his head. He washed his dis- 
ciples' feet. He was tempted in all points like as we are, 
that he might be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. 
Was Alfred of England in his humiliation Great? Christ 
was greater. Was Peter of Russia in his lowly service Great ? 
Behold, a greater than he is here in him whose condescension 
was so much more wonderful. 

Never did another bend so low dowai, from the sky above 
to the lowest depths. He was the finest of steel tested to the 
uttermost, a Damascus Blade tempered to perfection, and he 
never broke under the severest pressure. To him every 
broken spirit is commended for " grace sufficient" in every 
time of stress and strain. Was he not "smitten down?" 
Prostrate on the ground in Gethsemane he prayed, "0 my 
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me." 
Yet he was not destroyed; "nevertheless, not as I will, but as 
thou wilt." There is infinite capability of rebound. Smitten 
down: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" — yet 
not destroyed: "It is finished." There were alternations of 
feeling from despair almost to culminating victory. Smitten 
down : " He was buried ; ' ' yet not destroyed : ' ' raised on the 
third day. ' ' Here were boundless resources. This is the friend 
and helper whom we need and must have. Human nature 
alone has not stamina enough to stand up under the burden 
of sin and sorrow. It must bend and even break under the 
disciplinary, unless strength from above is ministered in 
weakness. 

Then trial and temptation only mature character, which 



DAMASCUS BLADES 

has in it the right kind of material. "Out of great tribula- 
tion ' ' came those whom John in his Revelation saw before the 
throne. Grace in the heart is like iron in the blood, it makes 
men strong, able to endure. When a rain-cloud which amounts 
to anything appears in the horizon, it straightway has to 
encounter the wind. Its growth is slow, because it has to 
contend against a steady gale. It goes on enlarging, gather- 
ing force, while the deepening blackness, the low mutterings 
in the distance, and the lurid flashes of light show how fearful 
is the struggle, until the electric power, increased by the very 
compression caused by the continuous blowing of the opposing 
wind, breaks out with all the grandeur and terrific majesty of 
the thunder-storm, sweeping the earth with whirlwind and 
rain, and shaking the very heavens. The electric cloud could 
not be confined, and the more it was resisted and thus com- 
pacted, the less likely was it to be dissipated into thin air by 
an over-rapid expansion, and the more probable was it to 
accumulate power sufficient to make a genuine storm. Let 
there be the right elements in a person, let there be in him 
thunder and lightning as in the "sons of thunder' ' anciently, 
let there be the iron or steel that gathers the electricity, let 
him have religion enough, and opposition and difficulty, so far 
from destroying, will only hold him in healthful check, con- 
densing his energies, until he has that reserved power which 
"can do all things.' ' The very battling with the adverse will 
only develope him, and bring out in him all that is best. He 
will be a Damascus Blade, bending but never breaking 



[i5i] 



CHAPTER XIII 
The Marathon Run 

TO accomodate ourselves to the moral order, there must 
be strenuousness. There must be training and discipline 
and practice of the athlete. There must be an earnest pressing 
to the goal. The athletic is perhaps the dominant spirit of 
our age. Young men often go to college, not for the sake 
of attainments in scholarship, but for the sake of feats in 
physical prowess. They would rather be captain of the rowing 
crew, than valedictorian of the class. They would rather 
shine on the football team than on the literary magazine. 
Any bodily contest will always be more largely reported than 
a debate between students of different institutions. Indeed 
for most persons the page of sports will attract attention 
sooner than a column descriptive of some scientific meeting. 
With the success or failure of the manly arts, colleges rise or 
fall in the estimation of many of the young. The minister 
finds it advantageous to take cognizance of this fact. He 
preaches on the bicycle or the automobile from the "whirling 
wheels" of Ezekiel. He conveys instruction from baseball, 
and thinks he is Scriptural, because the Bible has so much 
to say about the Hitt-ites. We can even appreciate the en- 
thusiasm of the young lady who, with confused ideas about 
quarterback and halfback and fullback, said with a glow 
of pride that she had a particular friend who was the greatest 
drawback ever on the Yale team. Never since the days of 
ancient Greece have athletics bulked so large in the public 

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THE MARATHON RUN 

mind as at present, and this is specially true of the Olympian 
Games. 

These continued from 776 B. C. to 394 A. D., nearly 
twelve hundred years. They were the glory of the country 
in which they originated, being announced by heralds who 
were crowned with flowers, and who traversed the whole land 
with their proclamations of what was coming. Thousands 
responded and even kings entered as contestants. The victors 
were crowned with a chaplet of wild olive cut with a golden 
knife, and no higher honor in the nation could be gained than 
to secure such a wreath. The games occurred at the end of 
every four years, and the national reckoning of time was in 
terms of the Olympiad. An event was said to have taken place 
in the first or second or third or fourth year of a specified 
Olympiad, the fifteenth or the twentieth or thirtieth, as the 
case might be. Where we say, in the year of our Lord, the 
Greeks said, In the year of a certain Olympiad. It is the 
Olympian Games which with the approval of college pro- 
fessors have been revived in our day, after having slumbered 
for fifteen centuries. 

These are more worthy of a resuscitation than the Roman 
exhibitions which partook more of the sanguinary, as we call 
to mind, for instance, the brutal gladiatorial shows. Every 
visitor to Rome, as he goes to the Collosseum, not only recalls 
Byron's well-known lines, 

"I stood within the Collosseum 's wall, 
Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome," 

but he also shudders at the scenes that there rise from the past. 
He ascends the Capitoline Hill, and gazing at the marvelous 
piece of sculpture, the Dying Gladiator, which can be seen 

[i53] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

there, and which has come down from antiquity, he repeats the 
same poet's equally familiar lines: 

"I see before me the gladiator lie: 

He leans upon his hand — his manly brow 
Consents to death, but conquers agony, 
And his drooped head sinks gradually low, — 
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow 
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, 
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now 
The arena swims, swims around him — he is gone, 

Butchered to make a Roman holiday." 

Unlike the Roman, the Grecian exhibitions were in the main 
wholesome and healthful and morally uncontaminating, and 
from them the New Testament writers often illustrate. 

When the Lord said, "Strive to enter in by the narrow 
door, ' ' the strait gate, the original Greek is, Agonize to enter, 
struggle as in a race. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "Know 
ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth 
the prize? Even so run that ye may attain. And every man 
that striveth in the games is temperate in all things. Now 
they do it to receive a corruptible crown; but we an in- 
corruptible. " And as to the crowning, Peter in his first 
epistle said, "Ye shall receive the crown of glory that fadeth 
not away. ' ' The chief of the apostles in his letter to Timothy 
said, ' ' If also a man contend in the games, he is not crowned, 
except he have contended lawfully." To the Philippians he 
penned these words, "One thing I do, forgetting the things 
which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which 
are before, I press toward the goal unto the prize of the 

[154] 



THE MARATHON RUN 

high calling of God in Christ Jesus." All these are illustra- 
tions from the Grecian games. The references are particu- 
larly to running, and there the Greeks excelled, as they did in 
the restored Stadium of Athens, where in 1896 there was 
among other things a celebration of the historic run of the 
messenger from the battle-field of Marathon, 490 B. C, to the 
Grecian capital in order to announce the glorious victory of 
10,000 Athenians over 100,000 and perhaps 200,000 Persians, 
to the saving of civilization. The distance of the original 26 
miles was covered again, and contestants at that renewal of 
the Olympian games entered the race. Bostonians and ath- 
letes from all nations were there. Who won ? Ninety thousand 
thronged the Stadium, and many more covered the sur- 
rounding hills constituting a still larger amphitheater, and 
the excitement was at its height, when there arrived, one 
after another, three native Greeks, who lost in other contests 
but not here, and there was a roar of applause, and the news 
was instantly wired round the globe, and everywhere the 
same enthusiasm was manifested. 

In Massachusetts on Patriots' Day each Spring, when 
memories of Lexington and Concord and of Paul Revere 's 
ride are revived, the Marathon run of classic times is repro- 
duced in making the distance from Wellesley or other suburb 
to Boston center. Columns in the daily papers are devoted 
to it, and thousands of spectators line the course from be- 
ginning to end, and toward the finish the crowds stand two 
to six deep on the streets, while at certain favored points 
there is a perfect jam. What was of such ancient and is of 
such modern interest can properly color our thoughts, as we 
draw successive religious lessons under the guidance of the 
inspired writer who said, "Therefore let us also, seeing we 
are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay 

[i'55] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset 
us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 
looking unto Jesus.' ' 

1. First, we are to "lay aside every weight." The run- 
ner of antiquity got rid of all superfluous flesh; this he did 
by dieting. A two hundred pounder would never have won 
the prize. When former Bishop Peck of Methodist fame, 
whose corpulency was immense, once came from California 
and addressed some eastern ministers, he innocently but very 
significantly clasped his hands over his capacious bodily pres- 
ence, his vast rotundity, as he said, "The Pacific slopes greet 
you." Such a person could never have run the ancient race. 
The Greeks would have hissed him, wheezing and out of 
breath, off the course. But let one reduce his weight, lay it 
aside, and he could run to some purpose. 

The discipline of old was ethical as well as physical. 
Plato speaks of those who lived lives of the strictest morality, 
and who scrupulously shunned all sinful excesses, for the sake 
of winning an Olympic triumph. People can not to any ad- 
vantage enter upon the Christian course, weighted down with 
the fleshly. They, for example, pamper their bodily wants, 
till they can make but little progress religiously. They devote 
an excess of time, we will say, to pleasure, or to accumulating. 
It is their meat and drink to make money. They swell with 
earthly gains, but how are they prospering spiritually ? They 
have no relish for anything except their business, every duty 
comes like a dead weight. When Christian service becomes 
burdensome, something is wrong. Many are rightly jeered at. 
"Hefty Christians they are!" is the common phrase of the 
world, and the characterization is eminently Scriptural, for 
it is the heft which is the trouble with such. They are too 
weighty with worldliness, and pathetic figures they cut, try- 

[i56] 



THE MARATHON RUN 

ing to run the Christian race. They go laboring along. They 
need a different diet, they need to live more on prayer. That 
is the gospel regime for putting Christian racers in good 
trim. If one wants to become a Christian or a more earnest 
disciple, he should begin a life of prayer, he should enter 
his closet in secret, he should set up the family altar, he 
should attend the devotional meeting of his church. By this 
diet of a greater and greater prayerfulness, he will gradually 
lay aside every weight which makes him go heavily in the re- 
ligious life, and henceforth there will increasingly be gladness 
of heart, and spontaneity of service, and he will make rapid 
progress toward the goal. 

2. In the second place, we are to lay aside "the sin which 
doth so easily beset us," or, as the margin reads, "doth 
closely cling to us. ' ' When the runner in the Grecian games 
had by dieting lost all corporeal unwieldliness, he next threw 
off any garment which by clinging about him might trip his 
feet. He entered the stadium with spirit, as he flung aside 
all cumbersome clothing. Imagine some high-toned professor 
of Corinth taking his position at the starting-point, with 
his elegant, classical robe reaching to his ankles, and wrapped 
closely around his shoulders. He never could have run, with 
his arms confined and with his lower limbs impeded by cling- 
ing raiment. That was not the Greek way. The racer ap- 
peared with splendid abandon, as he stripped and left behind 
all clothing that was superfluous, ready for the contest. 

So we are to lay aside "the sin which doth so easily 
beset us," which "doth closely cling to us;" we are to free 
ourselves of any entangling alliance of the world. If we 
want to be the sport of others, if we want to make a farce 
of religion, we need only to hold on to sinful associations, to 
continue our spiritual tumbling, our ups and downs ; it is all 

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OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

rare fun for the world to see such running. But if we mean 
business, if we are after the victor's crown, we must break 
away from worldly surroundings, which, thrown about us, 
act like a loose garment to beset the feet. Here is the difficulty 
with many. They think they can be good Christians, and still 
let the old habits cling to them, but it is impossible for them 
really to run, to make actual progress, unless they cut loose 
from all the besetting evil influences of the past. 

Some delay starting till they can be thorough. They have 
seen those whose every tangled mis-step was laughed at by the 
gaping world, and they do not care to be such Christians, and 
they are right in that respect. But they are wrong in only 
hovering about the starting point, boasting what they would 
do, if they did anything. Wherein they criticise others, they 
themselves are culpable. They have not come out of the 
world, shaking off the robe of worldliness which is around them 
as a besetting influence. They, so to speak, go around in 
their old mantle, saying whenever occasion offers, that if they 
ever do start, they are going at it in good earnest, they do 
intend to be like some of whom they know. Picture to your- 
self an ancient Greek, forever fussing about the stadium, in 
his long flowing robe, and telling this and that one, that if 
he ever entered the race, he would not be caught at it like so 
many others, with his mantle on, while at the same time he 
drew it all the closer about his person. The very boys of 
antiquity would have seen the ridiculousness of such a posi- 
tion, and to the inquiry, " Who is that trotting here and there 
in his long dangling tunic ? ' ' they would have had their ready 
reply, "That? That is Hipposocrates, who says that if he 
ever does, he is just going to." If any religiously would not 
behave after that fashion, they should come out and be separ- 
ate from sinners, they should throw off the old surroundings, 



THE MARATHON RUN 

and enter the race unentangled. They should not keep say- 
ing, that if they ever do become Christions, they are going 
to be good ones, they are not going to be as inconsistent as 
others, they are not going to make so many mis-steps, they are 
not going to retain any old robe of worldliness to trip their 
feet. They should not always be drawing comparisons be- 
tween what others do, and what they propose to do, if they 
do anything, if they ever do start. They should act without 
regard to the inconsistencies of others. i ' Know ye not, ' y says 
Paul, "that they which run in a race run all, but one re- 
ceiveth the prize ?" Each should resolve to be that one, who 
amid the failings of others is determined himself, divine grace 
assisting him, to obtain the promised crown. 

3. Again, the Grecian racer, having dieted till he lost 
all flabbiness, and having discarded all clinging raiment, next 
bent to the contest with his eyes fixed on the goal, never 
relaxing his effort till he had reached the end of the course. 
In like manner, we are to ' ' run with patience the race that 
is set before us, looking unto Jesus/ ' Some lack in patient 
endurance, in the plodding quality, in perseverance. They 
make a beginning in revival meetings or by signing de- 
cision cards, but they do not press on to membership in the 
church of Christ, assuming full responsibilities there. Or one 
does go forward to that extent, but he soon wearies of a life 
of constant Christian activity. He falls out of the number of 
the runners. Once a loyal church-member, he ceases to be 
identified in any vital way with God's people. Like the 
Galatians he ran well for a while. He attended prayer- 
meeting, he was interested in Sunday-school work, he rarely 
failed to be in his place at public worship. But by degrees he 
grew negligent of this and that duty. He dropped out oc- 
casionally, and then oftener, 'till he became very irregular, 

[^59] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

and was no longer a standby. Formerly an earnest Christian, 
he is such no more, and he ought to be startled at such a 
decadence in his religious life. He ought to spring to the 
race again. He ought to get his eyes on the goal once more. 
He ought to be stimulated to gain the crown which the Lord 
holds out to the faithful. This is no wreath of wild olives 
such as crowned the Olympic victor, no chaplet of green ivy 
such as constituted the prize for the Isthmian runner, no such 
fading garland as rewarded a Marathon triumph, but fade- 
less immortelles will circle the Christian's brow at last, a 
"crown of glory," says Peter, "that fadeth not away." If 
the Greeks strained every nerve to obtain the prize, much 
more should we, for they did it, says Paul, "to receive a cor- 
ruptible crown; but we are incorruptible." 

4. Finally, the inspiring circumstance is yet to be men- 
tioned, as indicated by the words, "we are compassed about 
with so great a cloud of witnesses." Any one, who has been 
in the Harvard Stadium or the Yale Bowl during the occur- 
rence of college athletic contests, can readily picture the 
scene, when the Stadium of Athens, for instance, was crowded 
with thousands of spectators to witness the Grecian games. 
Filling the successive tiers of seats rising upward in regular 
gradation is a vast assembly in filmy gowns and floating dra- 
peries, looking for all the world like a fleecy cloud encircling 
the contestants, who catch the pulsating sympathy of their mul- 
titudinous admirers seeming fairly to hang over the arena as 
they bend eagerly forward to note any indication of a coming 
triumph. Racers on the Christian course have about them 
the same magnetic hosts for enthusing them to make their 
utmost efforts to win the celestial prize. All the galleries of 
heaven are filled with those who have already run the race, 

[160] 



THE MARATHON RUN 

and with thrilling interest they are looking to see how those 
still below are running. 

Fathers and mothers are there, with breathless anxiety 
watching the course of sons and daughters. Sisters are there, 
robed in white and eager to see brothers run manfully. Wives 
are there, in the bridal attire of celestials waving their en- 
couragements to husbands who have promised to meet them 
at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Angelic children are 
there, fluttering their " snowy wings " as if in Chautauqua 
salutes to stimulate parents to make sure of joining them in 
the sweet by and by. All the saints are there to cheer onward 
those who have not completed their running. Eyes are holden 
so as not to see the heavenly hosts, who, however, like a 
vibrant cloud surround the runners, their invisible presence 
electrifying the very air. This should be a stimulus to all to 
complete the Marathon run on the Christian course, till it is 
finished with joy, amid ringing plaudits even of angels. 

' ' Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve, 

And press with vigor on ; 
A heavenly race demands thy zeal, 

And an immortal crown. 
A cloud of witnesses around 

Hold thee in full survey; 
Forget the steps already trod, 

And onward urge thy way." 



[*6i] 



CHAPTER XIV 

Say So or Christian Expression 

THE RIGHT moral order requires primarily the inner 
experience of the religious life, and thereafter a suit- 
able expression thereof. The first essential is not what is 
outward. Christianity must be tested from the inside rather 
than from the outside. " Standing on the pavement before 
the great cathedral/ ' says another, "and looking at the 
lofty window in its front, you wonder that any thing so dull, 
so unattractive, should be the glory of the city. Standing 
outside you see no beauty that you should desire it. But 
come inside and look at the window. It is aflame with light, 
and shines and burns like the sea of glass mingled with fire." 
After a similar fashion Kenyon, the sculptor in Hawthorne's 
Marble Faun, is made to speak: "Christian faith is a great 
cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. Standing with- 
out, you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine any; stand- 
ing within, every ray of light reveals a harmony of unspeak- 
able splendor." This is all true, and yet the outward is not 
without importance. Experience must culminate in expres- 
sion. The life within must have its culmination in a flower- 
ing out. In a sense the root is not so attractive as the 
blossom. At any rate, this chapter is to take into considera- 
tion that which can be seen, that which has an outward mani- 
festation. 

Expression is a law of life and growth everywhere. 
Nature does not come to its best, so long as there is only the 

[162] 



SAY SO OR CHRISTIAN EXPRESSION 

hidden life of the Winter, so long as the ground is mantled 
with snow in New England, so long as the hills are perfectly- 
brown in California. The trees seems lifeless while they are 
leafless. In both cases there may be living currents within, 
but in order to beauty and utility these must have 
expression in green grass and unfolding flowers, in fresh 
foliage and maturing fruit. Music is of value only as it is 
brought out. All the harmonies and symphonies surging in 
the heart of a master, of a Handel or Mendelssohn or 
Beethoven, are useless unless given to the world. Art is the 
result of noble ideals in the soul wrought out on canvas. 
Raphael would never have produced that culminating work 
of his life, the matchless Transfiguration which adorns the 
Vatican gallery, if he had not given constant expression to 
the images floating before his mind. The renowned in litera- 
ture have acquired their fine style only by repeated efforts 
to express their thoughts. 

Even in oratory, the talent is not inborn so much as ac- 
quired. Demosthenes, that prince of orators, is an example. 
He overcame inarticulate and stammering speech, according 
to tradition, by speaking with pebbles in his mouth. He 
strengthened his voice by declaiming while out of breath 
after running, or by testing his lungs in making himself 
heard above the roar of the sea, on whose beach he stood with 
the breakers for an audience. He had an underground 
abode, where he would remain and practice for two and three 
months at a time, shaving half his head, that he might be com- 
pelled for very shame to stay in retirement for the necessary 
developing of his powers of eloquence. " Hence it was," 
says Plutarch the ancient historian, "that he was looked 
upon as a person of no great natural genius, but one who 
owed all the power and ability he had in speaking to labor 

[163] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

and industry. " This is contrary to the popular impression 
of how an orator is made, but it is in accordance with the 
fact. There must be frequent expression in order to the 
highest oratory. 

Domestic love is subject to the same law of life and 
growth. Let no word of praise ever be spoken, and the child 
becomes discouraged at trying to do well, and perhaps be- 
comes estranged from the home. Dickens in Bleak House 
has a character, who is represented as making a very com- 
mon mistake, when he said of his wife, "She is like a fine 
day, which grows finer as it advances. I never knew her 
equal. But I never tell her so." This undemonstrativeness 
is supposed to be an exclusively Scotch trait, and the writer 
having inherited a good measure of this reserve is not dis- 
posed to enter much of a demurrer, except to express his 
conviction that no nationality is faultless in this respect. 
Most need the exhortation, that if the members of a family 
love one another, they should say so. Love dies, or at least 
languishes without expression, and however cold some may 
be constitutionally, they like to see the demonstrative, and 
the pulse quickens at the experience of some endearment. 

When Garfield was inaugurated President of the 
United States, there was one thing which struck all, and 
which, flashed round the globe, awoke more of a response 
than all the pomp and display on that memorable national 
occasion. What was the single inaugural feature which 
made all hearts warm toward our second martyr President ? 
It was the imprinting, in the midst of the impressive cere- 
monies, of a kiss on the furrowed brow of the aged mother 
who stood proudly by his side. The world applauded that 
expression of filial love. Firemen do not do their best, unless 
those whose houses they sometimes save indicate apprecia- 
te 



SAY SO OR CHRISTIAN EXPRESSION 

tion of their heroic efforts. They are stimulated to fight the 
flames with greater desperateness than ever, if occasionally 
they are commended. There is a well-known story of one 
of them ascending a ladder to rescue a young girl in an 
upper window, of his faltering when the fire shot out from 
the burning building almost into his face, of his hesitating 
to proceed till somebody in the crowd called out, "Cheer 
him!", of his being nerved by the applauding spectators on 
the ground, of his thereupon springing through the fiery 
element that seethed about him, of his catching the child in 
his arms and bearing her in triumph to the distracted mother 
below. He never could have accomplished the herculean task 
but for the clapping hands of the multitudes, who breath- 
lessly watched and opportunely encouraged his perilous 
ascent. 

We do not praise one another enough, until after death, 
and then eulogy abounds, but as has been quaintly and yet 
truthfully said, "One pound of taffy is worth a whole ton of 
epitaphy." When Chalmers was stricken down, Guthrie well 
said, "Men of his caliber are like mighty forest trees; we 
do not know their size till they are down." But we ought 
to gauge people better than we do during their life. Their 
success would be still greater, if only they knew how they 
were upborne by the sympathies of others. A preacher can 
be developed or dwarfed by his hearers, who perhaps have 
as much to do in the making of him as God himself from 
whom he receives his high calling. Those were character- 
istic prayers when a minister said, "0 Lord, keep me poor 
and humble," while a deacon continued in supplication, "0 
Lord, keep him humble, and we will keep him poor." A 
clergyman can be kept poor not only pecuniarily, but also 

[165] 



OUT OP JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

intellectually and spiritually by a continuous silence as to 
any appreciation of his services. 

Now in the distinctive sphere of religion, there is need 
of the outward manifestation of the inner feeling. Ex- 
pression is a law of Christian life and growth, and therefore 
the Psalmist says, "Oh that men would praise the Lord for 
his goodness." We ought to praise the Lord as well as one 
another, for that is something which even he craves, and 
hence the command, "Let the redeemed of the Lord say so." 
We will notice some of the modes of giving expression to the 
religious. 

1. First, as to public worship. Every church edifice is a 
reaching out after God by means of the visible. The patri- 
arch Jacob long centuries ago saw the need of this, when he 
took the stone which had served for his pillow, and made it a 
pillar, and called it "God's house." It has been a question 
what became of the consecrated stone of Bethel. We read in 
Fisher's Universal History, that Edward the First of Eng- 
land, conqueror of William Wallace and of Scotland, carried 
off "the stone on which the Scottish kings had always been 
crowned. It is now in Westminister Abbey under the 
coronation chair of the sovereign of Great Britain." There 
it has been seen by me personally in the chapel of Edward 
the Confessor. "There was a legend," continues the Yale 
historian, "that on the same stone the patriarch Jacob laid 
his head when he beheld angels ascending and descending at 
Bethel. Where that stone was, it was believed that Scottish 
kings would reign. This was held to be verified when 
English kings of Scottish descent inherited the crown." 
That is a beautiful legend, but the stone of Bethel is rather 
in every ecclesiastical building, for it was a stone which at 
the very outset was identified with "God's house." It is 

[166] 



SAY SO OR CHRISTIAN EXPRESSION 

proper to erect the pillar, the house, for worship. This is a 
divinely authorized expression of the religious. 

We should therefore frequent the sanctuary. God does 
not endorse the sentiment sometimes heard, that people can 
be Christians just as well at home, or in the fields and woods, 
or in art galleries. The Lord is specially in his holy temple. 
He loves the gates of Zion, he assures us in his Word, more 
than all the dwellings of Jacob. So that we should not be 
neglectful of the house of God, which furnishes a helpful 
opportunity for giving needful expression to the religious. 
The preaching may not be the best, but it would seem essen- 
tial to Christian life and growth. The experience of Sir 
Thomas Fowell Buxton, the British philanthropist of last 
century, is worth noting. He once said, "A man must 
preach very well indeed, before he conveys such a lesson of 
the greatness of God, and the unworthiness of man, as a view 
of the heaven discloses." And yet this same distinguished 
baronet, near the close of his noble career in the interest of 
the abolition of the slave trade, bore this testimony: "What- 
ever I have done in my life for Africa, the seeds of it were 
sown in my heart in Wheeler street Chapel.'' Our best 
development needs the help of the worshiping assembly, 
into the spirit of which we should enter more than we do. 
There should be more of public nwrship. 

The sermon has come to have perhaps too much promi- 
nence, more certainly than it had in apostolic times, when 
indeed there was no set discourse, but when different ones 
spoke as they were moved upon from above. Then there was 
the audible response, there was in the congregation the 
Amen, which is so largely associated now with Methodist 
assemblies, and which is going out of vogue even there, but 
which is not out of place in any denomination. It has Old 

[167] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

Testament sanction, for in Deuteronomy we read, "And all 
the people shall answer and say, Amen;" and in Nehemiah, 
"Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. And all the people 
answered, Amen, Amen, with the lifting up of their hands." 
The custom was carried over into the New Testament church, 
for to the Corinthians Paul in his first epistle writes of those 
who "say the Amen at thy giving of thanks." This inci- 
dental allusion indicates what the practice was. Justin 
Martyr shows what the usage in the second century of the 
Christian era was in that he said, "When the president has 
finished the prayers and the thanksgiving, the whole people 
present give assent, saying, Amen." We need more of the 
responsive in worship to-day, we need a more general par- 
ticipation in religious services. If we do not have the spoken 
Amen, for that can become merely mechanical, we at least 
should have something that is its equivalent. There should 
be more of congregational singing, when the opportunity for 
that is offered. No one, who can take an audible part in 
the music, should sit silent. "The tongue of the dumb," says 
Isaiah, "shall sing." The responsive reading of Scripture, 
the uniting in the Lord's Prayer, the reciting in concert of 
the Apostles' Creed, the Amen at the close of each hymn, — 
all this is to be commended in order to have more of ex- 
pression in religion. 

2. In addition to this participation in public worship, 
there is needed more of the distinctly personal expression, 
such as can be had in religious conversation with individuals, 
and also in the meeting for prayer and conference. Frequent 
taking part in the latter is promotive of spiritual progress. 
Let any cease to make their voices heard, let them relapse into 
a continuous silence, and their religious life is apt to decline. 
They are likely to lose their Christian enjoyment, while their 

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SAY SO OE CHRISTIAN EXPRESSION 

hope grows dim. In proportion to their activity, to their 
personal participation in the work of the church, do they have 
the satisfying sense of the divine presence, and the approval 
of a good conscience. If there is no expression of love in the 
family, the reality will die out. It is the same in the house- 
hold of faith. A persistent reserve religiously is baneful. To 
counteract this peril to the soul, there has been established 
the Christian Endeavor movement, whose essential feature is 
the iron-clad pledge to take some part in every meeting. The 
aim is to cultivate religious expression in order to Christian 
life and growth. 

Good advice for every convert is to begin at once letting 
the voice be heard, and that, too, though the initial testi- 
monies and petitions be very broken. God appreciates the 
feeble attempt of his children to express their love and joy 
and peace and satisfaction. The struggling emotions may 
sometimes prevent any coherent utterance, but the honest en- 
deavor is approvingly noted in heaven. When the Speaker 
of the House of Burgesses in colonial days, upon the return 
of Washington from one of the latter 's successful expeditions 
against the French, thanked him, so we read, ' * for the military 
services he had rendered his country, taken by surprise 
Washington rose to reply, but words were wanting, he faltered 
and blushed. 'Sit down, Mr. Washington/ kindly said the 
Speaker, 'your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses 
the power of any language.' " Washington was then in- 
experienced and diffident, and he could not express himself, 
but he made the effort, and his then superior accepted the 
manifest will for the deed. No attempt at a response would 
have been inexcusable. When any endeavor to give expression 
to their religious feelings (and no effort in this direction 
would seem to be unpardonable), when they do the best they 

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OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

can, if they practically break down, make a failure so far as 
connected words are concerned, they nevertheless may be 
pleasing God. The chief of the apostles said, "We know 
not how to pray as we ought ; but the Spirit himself maketh 
intercession for us with groanings which can not be uttered.' ' 
That is, when persons struggle to express their spiritual de- 
sires, and when they sigh over their inability to say at all 
what they want to say, sometimes indeed saying the very 
opposite of what they had intended, their very groanings of 
dissatisfaction and of humiliation, their confessedly imperfect 
utterances find acceptance with the Lord. He has infinitely 
more consideration for the timid, halting Christian than was 
felt for the young general of subsequent Revolutionary fame. 
He recognizes that with experience will come an increasing 
command of the powers of expression. 

3. There is a third application which can be made 
of the truth under consideration. In every community are 
those who seem to be Christians in all respects save one. 
They make light of the idea of a personal experience of 
religion, and of its expression in the church of Christ. They 
talk about practical, every-day religion, and they have a 
diminishing use for what they designate as organized Chris- 
tianity. They are fond of being classed as outside Christians, 
whereas they should be inside. They apparently believe with 
the heart unto righteousness, but they do not meet the other 
Pauline condition of admission to the kingdom, they do not 
confess with the mouth unto salvation. Like the model young 
man of the gospel story they keep the commandments, but they 
lack one thing needful, the self-surrender implied in taking 
up the cross which carries with it the open espousal of the 
good cause. They are consistent, and sometimes because of 
being naturally better they are more exemplary than some 

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SAY SO OR CHRISTIAN EXPRESSION 

already in the church. But to the wonder of many they 
do not commit themselves religiously. They are not altogether 
without the Christian hope, they secretly believe on the Lord 
Jesus, and in their inner heart they feel that they are essen- 
tially disciples. If they are, they should "say so." 

Marvelous is the manifestation of the love of God in the 
redemptive work wrought by his Son, and shall there be no 
outward response ? The divine condescension is more amazing 
than anything of the kind witnessed on earth. At the time 
of the decease of Henry Ward Beeeher, the papers were full 
of accounts of his unequalled eloquence in the cause of human 
freedom, and of God and humanity. In view of his universally 
admitted greatness, there is something touching in an incident 
connected with his last appearance in Plymouth church. After 
the evening service the wearied preacher tarried, and hung 
upon the words of a hymn which the choir was rehearsing, 
"I heard the voice of Jesus say, Come unto me and rest." 
Then, so it was said in a memorial discourse at his funeral, 
' * Two street urchins were prompted to wander into the build- 
ing, and one of them was standing in the position of the boy 
whom Raphael has immortalized, gazing up at the organ. The 
old man, laying his hand upon the boy's head, turned his face 
upward and kissed him, and with his arms about the two 
left the scene of his triumph, his trials and successes forever. 
It was a fitting close to a grand life, the old man of genius 
shielding the little wanderers." That will go down in history 
with Garfield's kiss of his mother, and hearts will never cease 
to be moved by such a demonstration of a great loving nature. 

But nineteen centuries ago there was the kiss of the 
father bestowed upon the prodigal, as expressive of God's 
feeling toward the sinner. Redemption through Christ is his 
kiss of love upon the brow of every penitent, and it would 

[i7i] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

seem that there should be some response, some grateful ac- 
knowledgment of the divine compassion. The condescension 
of Garfield and of Beecher does not begin to compare with 
that of God, who craves some expression in return for his 
graciousness. What is needed in the home, in society, in 
religion, is less of the self contained and secretive life, and 
more of the demonstrative. Christ himself is not above de- 
siring some manifestation of the deep devotion that may be 
burning in the human heart. The greatest of earth never 
outgrow a yearning for the affectionate. This is illustrated 
in the case of Lord Nelson, the great English admiral. When 
he received his mortal wound at Trafalgar, and when he was 
carried by marines down below to die, though he knew that 
he had triumphed, and had thus justified the naming of his 
flagship "The Victory/' which still swings in Portsmouth 
harbor, he yet wanted to see Hardy, his chief subordinate, who 
for a while could not leave the deck where under his direc- 
tion the historic seafight was being fought to a finish, and 
England's supremacy on the ocean was being fully established. 
But at last the dying hero was permitted to see the beloved 
Hardy, to hear from him of the victory completed, and then, 
ere his spirit took its flight, with a touch of nature which 
makes the whole world kin he made that pathetic request 
at which many eyes have since moistened, namely, "Kiss me, 
Hardy." Amid a flood of emotions which the sturdy mariner 
could not repress, the coveted caress of the lips was bestowed 
on the cheek and also upon the forehead of the illustrious 
naval commander, who thereupon sank to his final rest like 
a child falling asleep after a mother's loving "good-night!" 
The Captain of our salvation doubtless desires to receive from 
us some token of what our inner feeling toward him may 
be. Impression should always be followed by expression. 

[172] 



SAY SO OR CHRISTIAN EXPRESSION 

There is no occasion for delay. Themistocles, who gained the 
famous naval battle of Salamis, waited for the land breeze 
which began to blow at nine o'clock in the morning. That 
was all very well before the days of steam or electric power, 
but it would not be wise now. If any are waiting for favoring 
breezes from Beulah Land, for gales of inspiration, for deeper 
convictions and stronger impulses, they are making a mistake. 
The first disciples did have to tarry for the bestowal of the 
Spirit, for his coming as a rushing, mighty wind, but this 
Pentecostal power from on high was then granted once for 
all, and the Spirit now is always present with sufficient in- 
fluence to carry a soul into the kingdom and to waft it over 
life's tempestuous ocean into the desired haven on the sea 
of glass and of glory before the throne in heaven. 



[m] 



CHAPTER XV 

Scriptural Sticks 

THE main difficulty in getting men to assume responsi- 
bility in the moral order is its vastness and their little- 
ness. The individual does not seem to count, and 
yet he does, even as the small cog-wheel is essential 
to the workings of an immense machine. The aim of 
this chapter will be to emphasize, that the combination of 
the units is what makes for the solidarity and strength of 
the whole. It was John Marshall, who became Chief Justice of 
the United States Supreme Court in 1801, and who served in 
that capacity for thirty-four years, it was he who gave to his 
country that fine political maxim, "In Union there is 
strength. " It is as true religiously as it is politically that 
"United we stand, divided we fall." This lesson was con- 
veyed long ago by Aesop in his fable of the bundle of rods. 
An aged man, according to the classic story, in order to 
impress the necessity of union upon his divided sons, produced 
a bundle of rods, and bade them each to test his strength in 
breaking the same. Each tried and failed, and then the 
bundle was separated, and the single rods were easily snapped 
asunder. Thereupon the father said, ' ' my sons, behold the 
power of unity. ' ' 

Ezekiel teaches the same thing in a passage which we 
will here reproduce from his prophecy. "The word of the 
Lord came again unto me, saying, And thou, son of man, 
take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for 

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SCRIPTURAL STICKS 

the children of Israel his companions: then take another 
stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, 
and for all the house of Israel his companions : and join them 
for thee one to another into one stick, that they may become 
one in thine hand. And when the children of thy people 
shall speak unto thee, sa}dng, Wilt thou not show us what thou 
meanst by these? say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: 
Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of 
Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his companions : and I will 
put them with it, even with the stick of Judah, and make them 
one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand. And the sticks 
whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes." 
Symbols have frequently been used for the more forcible 
expression of thought. We read of an eastern emperor de- 
claring war against the Saracen power by throwing down 
before the Emir a sheaf of swords. There is the familiar 
incident related by Longfellow in Miles Standish: 

"The skin of a rattlesnake glittered, 
Filled like a quiver with arrows; a signal and challenge of 

warfare, 
Brought by the Indian, and speaking with arrowy tongues of 

defiance/' 

Of the brave Captain it is added : 

"Then from the rattlesnake's skin, with a sudden, contemp- 
tuous gesture, 
Jerking the Indian arrows, he filled it with powder and bullets 
Full to the very jaws, and handed it back to the savage." 

Ezekiel gave another example of symbolic teaching. He put 
two sticks together, not in a figure, but in reality. It was 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

something enacted in the sight of all, "the sticks whereon 
thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes." The 
imagery gave a most vivid representation of a truth; it pic- 
tured most graphically the situation. 

The Jewish nation was split in twain, the ten tribes 
taking the name of the most prominent member, Ephraim; 
and the southern kingdom, which formed the other division, 
being called on the same principle, Judah. Two sticks, in- 
scribed respectively with these titles, were held up together 
by the prophet, to show the increased strength of such a 
union. It was the lesson so constantly enforced by those, who 
urged the union of the Colonies in Revolutionary times, in 
order to anything like a free and independent nation. To the 
signers of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin 
Franklin said laconically, "We must hang together, or hang 
separately/ ' If the Jews were to continue as a nation, and 
the chosen people of God, they must be united, not broken and 
dishonored fragments, but strong because of national and 
spiritual unity. 

Dispersed as they have been, they have been a mighty 
instrument in the hands of Providence for working out his 
great plan on the earth. If as scattered sticks they have 
been such a power, what might not have been accomplished 
through them, if they had remained the theocratic kingdom 
which God designed them to be ! They would have constituted 
a sceptre beneath which before this all mankind would prob- 
ably have been subdued. The joined sticks, the united tribes, 
would have resulted in the divine authority being far more 
widely recognized than it is, more extended than ever was 
the Roman sway with its famous fasces, with its historic bundle 
of rods which the lictor used to carry before the imperial 
magistrate. When Attila the Hun was ravaging Europe with 

[176] 



SCRIPTURAL STICKS 

the proud boast, that where his horse's feet struck grass never- 
more grew, he was called ' ' The Scourge of God, ' ' but not thus 
does the Master triumph, who uses rather only "a scourge of 
small cords.' ' The fasces which he has carried before him, 
the bundle of rods with which he strikes his effective blows, 
his scourge of small cords, is none other than the gospel com- 
bination of Christian lives. If religious sticks are only joined, 
they make a powerful instrumentality in the hand of God for 
subduing humanity unto himself. It is desired to have effi- 
cient Christian work done in a community. How can the 
greatest success be obtained? 

1. For one thing, all the members of a church or a con- 
gregation should do their part pecuniarily. Each should 
assume some responsibility, as he systematically contributes 
to missionary objects, and also takes his pew or sitting, or 
otherwise very definitely by some stated amount helps to sup- 
port the organization to which he belongs. To attain this, 
there is the " every-member canvass," which increasingly is 
becoming a feature of church activity. It is by combining 
the mickles that we get the muckle. The sticks when joined 
in a bundle tell a different story from what they do when 
taken singly. Though a society be largely made up of poor 
sticks financially, of persons whose means are slender, of those 
who are only in moderate circumstances, united small pledges 
and gifts aggregate surprisingly well. The difficulty is, that 
often the littles are not given with sufficient conscientiousness, 
and are not gathered with any system. 

Catholic churches are in this respect wiser because more 
systematic than Protestant, for though they confessedly have 
a poorer constituency, they raise more proportionately, be- 
cause, such is the unworthy sneer, every domestic and every 
day laborer are required to give. And why should they not ? 

[*77] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

Is there any aristocracy in what Paul calls the grace of giving ? 
Are those in limited circumstances exempt from some re- 
ligious duties? The obligation is to contribute statedly to 
the Lord's treasury according to the prosperity of the in- 
dividual. "Let each one of you lay by him in store, as he 
may prosper," says the apostle, who makes no exception. 
What is needed, therefore, is the uniting of the small sticks, 
down to the widows' mites. This does not mean, that the 
well-to-do should give the mites, as they sometimes do. A rich 
old bachelor once handed to a church collector a merest trifle 
with the sanctimonious remark, that he presumed the widow 's 
mite would be acceptable, to which there was the sensible 
reply, that he was not a widow, much less a poor one, casting 
in "all she had." If any are to give as the Biblical woman 
did, let them remember that she gave her all. A Sunday-school 
boy estimated properly the Pharisees, when he charged them 
with being "a mean lot." He had a dim and vague recollec- 
tion of their bringing to Christ a penny with the stamp of 
Caesar, while the Lord asked, "Whose superscription is this?" 
The lad got the incident somewhat mixed, when he went on 
to explain why he had characterized the Pharisees as he did. 
He said that in their stinginess they once brought only a penny 
to Christ, who held it up in disdain, as was evident from his 
question, "Whose subscription is this?" A penny from those 
who can afford more is indicative of a penuriousness which is 
the farthest move from a proper Christian generosity. There 
are too many of the class of "Alexander the copper-smith," 
whom Paul condemned, and too many of the New Testament 
sect of the iVicoZaitans. Out of poverty, pennies and coppers 
and nickels may be acceptable, but not otherwise. All should 
share to the extent of their ability in the monetary responsi- 
bilities of a church. Every one, who is earning something, or 



SCRIPTURAL STICKS 

who has any income, ought sacredly to devote part of it to the 
cause of Christianity. Every clerk in our stores, every 
teacher in our schools, every working man and sewing woman, 
— all should recognize the claim upon them of the gospel. 
A retail merchant would soon fail, if he negotiated only the 
exceptional large sales, if he did not have a multitude of small 
purchasers. A church is on a strong financial basis, not when 
it has simply a few large and liberal contributors, for they 
may die, but when it has also many faithful small givers, for 
such a general and conscientious support never fails, habits of 
benevolence being handed down from generation to generation. 
The pecuniary responsibility should be so divided as to rest 
easily upon all, those with one talent being as responsible ac- 
cording to their means as those with five and ten talents. Let 
every attendant upon worship do his financial duty, let every 
stick even be added to the bundle, and there will be a strength 
which is cheering, as all obligations are met with promptitude. 
2. The truth under consideration applies also to a sup- 
port not only pecuniary but likewise religious. A hearty 
co-operation of all even in little things is what brings success. 
A metropolitan church and a star preacher are not so depen- 
dent perhaps upon the simple faithfulness of all for pros- 
perity. A rich society opens its treasury, takes out five or 
ten thousand dollars, casts a sweeping glance over the 
country's galaxy of ministers, selects- one of the most brilliant, 
a star of the first magnitude, and holds out to him a salary 
large enough to act like gravity in drawing him from his pres- 
ent charge. Such a church and such a preacher may each be 
a tower of strength, at least for the time being, both mighty 
pillars, because of solid wealth in the one and striking ability 
in the other. It is not to this favorable and necessarily excep- 
tional condition of things, that the lesson of the united sticks 

[179] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MOEAL ORDER 

is most fittingly applied ; but to the average church and to the 
average minister, neither of them a strong pillar, each of 
them rather a weak stick, for ordinarily it is a stick of a 
preacher who fills the pulpit, and a stick of a congregation 
that occupies the pews, as respects the real good which either 
alone can accomplish. We might as well be frank enough to ac- 
knowledge, that religiously we are all poor sticks. There was 
wisdom as well as wit in what Sydney Smith once said to his 
brethren who were discussing the paving of the floor of St. 
Paul's in London with wood. He suggested that they " should 
put their heads together and it would soon be done." We 
are all of a wooden type so far as real Christian efficiency is 
concerned. Nevertheless, let the sticks be joined, let pastor 
and people together be engaged earnestly in the work, and 
their united strength is by no means insignificant. They 
form an instrument, with which the Almighty can deal sin 
heavy and effective blows. The point is, that an ordinary 
church and an average pastor can by joining hand to hand 
and heart to heart do valiant service. The result of their 
united efforts will be a stick still, but the strength and effi- 
ciency will certainly be materially increased. Two sticks 
together are stronger than when apart. Get a bundle of 
them, and the heart of every modern Aesop is rejoiced. 

There is power in the mere presence of a multitude; 
there is inspiration, as is so often said, in numbers, in a large 
congregation. Many, who in their own estimation can not 
do much, can help here by invariably being present. Even 
children can assist in enlarging the bundle. Nor is this too 
much to expect of them, for the morning service and Sunday- 
school both last only two hours and a half, and they are con- 
fined twice as long as that on week days for educational pur- 
poses, and the saving of the soul is at least as important as 

[180] 



SCRIPTURAL STICKS 

the culture of the mind. Parents should feel some responsi- 
bility and exercise some authority in this matter (as they do 
elsewhere), if they would not see their children soon joining 
the great mass of non-churchgoers because of having never 
formed the habit of public worship. There is significance in 
Jacob's sticks, which partially stripped of their bark were 
at the generating season exposed to the flocks, whose young 
as a consequence, in accordance with the working of a well- 
known physiological law, were spotted. Many fathers and 
mothers, in the lack of a good example and of faithful train- 
ing, display so much of the peeled rod in their character, so 
much of the whitened and deadened stick, that their offspring, 
like the patriarch's lambs and kids, become "ringstreaked, 
speckled, and grizzled" religiously. Let parents and child- 
ren both be regularly found in the house of God, and the 
effect will be most salutary. If they can do nothing more, 
they can form part of the great congregation, they can help 
to enlarge the bundle. 

There are other respects in which even poor sticks can 
be useful. They can do their utmost to keep up the minor 
religious societies to which they belong. They can do well the 
duties of the separate committees on which they serve. They 
can be faithful in these humbler spheres, and when each or- 
ganization and group thus does its own simple work, there 
is progress all along the line. They can as adults be present 
at the Bible school to encourage the superintendent, enabling 
him better to retain the larger pupils, who are quick to discern 
the absence of grown people, and who soon follow the example 
of those who are older. All, too, can be loyal in attending 
devotional and missionary meetings. They can greatly assist 
by social calling. These things should not be left to the few, 
but should be taken up by the many. None of us may amount 

[181] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

to a great deal, but when we all do our respective parts, the 
result is noticeable. If each merely contributes his presence 
here and there, if he simply helps to swell the numbers, if he 
unites his feeble efforts with the equally humble endeavors of 
others, an increased stimulus and impetus will be given to the 
various church activities. The prophet 's appeal is to the per- 
sons of single talents and moderate endowments, is to the re- 
ligious sticks that they unite in the bundle, that they each 
be faithful in that which is least. 

Even then one thing more will be needful. "When ye 
shall have done all the things that are commanded you," we 
read in Holy Writ, "say, We are unprofitable servants; we 
have done that which it was our duty to do." We shall still 
feel that we have no merit, we shall still recognize our ineffi- 
ciency and insufficiency, and we shall be inclined to pray that 
upon all our perfunctory efforts, upon all our bare perform- 
ances of duty, may be breathed life from above. The Spirit 
needs to move, not only upon the dry bones of which we read 
in Ezekiel, but also upon his deadened sticks. We need to 
get into close touch and sympathy with the working elements 
of a church, and into vital contact and communion with that 
Vine of which we are the branches, and we then shall be more 
than the sticks of Ephraim and Judah, more than the life- 
less rods upon which the names of the twelve tribes were 
written. We shall each be like Aaron's rod which, says the 
inspired writer, "put forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and 
bare ripe almonds." All of us, who in comparison with what 
we should be are consciously dead sticks religiously, "un- 
profitable servants," may under the divine blessing become 
budding, and blossoming, and fruitful branches. Thus shall 
be fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, "In that day shall the 
branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious," and with other 

[182] 



SCRIPTURAL STICKS 

redeemed souls that have constituted a bundle of sticks, an 
imperfect organization, down here below, — with these we 
shall by and by be forever "bound in the bundle of life" 
above, where indeed the united lives shall be "beautiful and 
glorious. ' y 

3. Once more, there is encouragement even when we 
fix our eyes upon the mighty enemy we have to combat. How- 
ever strong may be the foe, he must succumb to the combined 
efforts of a thoroughly organized Christianity. Fluidity it- 
self, if the units are all joined, is resistless. "Little drops 
of water make the mighty ocean, ' ' is what we have long been 
familiarly taught. A single aqueous globule seems unimpor- 
tant, but get this small unit in sufficient numbers, and you 
have a tremendous force, which the Bible has recognized in 
the phrase, "The waters wear the stones." The opposition 
may be adamant, which, however, must yield to united efforts 
that separately would have no efficacy, for even naturally un- 
stable waters wear the stones. When Lincoln was asked what 
he would do if the rebellion was not subdued after three or 
four years of war, he replied, "There is no alternative but 
to keep pegging away." That is what the waters do, they 
keep pegging away, until hard rock itself has to yield. 

We have this illustrated in Niagara, as Byron says of 
the Fall of Terni, 

"Shaking the abyss; 
The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss, 
And boil in endless torture." 

How were the American and the Canadian or Horseshoe Falls 
made, those cataracts that are respectively 167 and 158 feet 
in height? They were made by a river whose old bed had 

E*S] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

been filled with the drift of the glacial epoch, while a new 
passage had to be cut by the waters. At Lewiston the flood 
began to dig that gorge which is now seven miles long, and 
which with its perpendicular walls can be reached at its 
bottom only by considerable stairways. Little by little the 
edge of the precipice has receded, at the rate of one foot a 
year according to some, while 31,000 years have thus been 
required for the grand work of nature ; or at the rate of one 
inch a year according to others who count 380,000 years for 
the digging out of the rock-bound channel. Suppose that the 
time was much less than either of these estimates, and we can 
readily see that it might be from the existing condition of 
things. We see a precipice consisting of 80 to 90 feet of 
limestone, while below is a softer formation which is more 
easily washed away. In this way there has been formed the 
"Cave of the Winds,' ' a pathway behind the falling waters. 
We can conceive of the roof of this cave some day suddenly 
collapsing, and causing a recession of many feet in a moment. 
But even on this supposition, thousands of years have been 
required to make that seven-mile gorge, with its wonderful 
whirlpool sucking down immense trees and shooting them up 
again, and whirling them round and round sometimes for a 
month or more before sending them on down the channel. 
We can hardly understand how pliant fluidity could dig such 
a tremendous gorge with any amount of time, with whole 
milleniums in which to operate. But the feature of impos- 
sibility disappears, when we bear in mind that "the waters 
wear the stones, " that while one drop could effect nothing, 
the numberless drops, which constitute the two million tons 
of water thrown every minute over the ledge of the rock, 
are next to omnipotent, and we do not wonder that the Indians 
called the Palls Niagara, which in their tongue meant 

[184] 



SCRIPTURAL STICKS 

"thunder of water.' ' We ourselves have been so impressed, 
that standing near the scene we could only think of the 
sublime apostrophe of Scripture, 

"Hast thou an arm like God? 
And canst thou thunder with a voice like Him ? J ' 

If Niagara is not Omnipotence speaking of "the thunder of 
his power," it surely is a demonstration of the almost irres- 
tible strength of combined littles that never cease their activity. 
He who works in and through us teaches, that a process thus 
begun shall be carried forward to completion, if only we faint 
not, if only we remember that "the waters wear the stones " 
through the millenial days of a thousand years each. 



[185] 



CHAPTER XVI 

The Complete Armor: Religious Preparedness 

WE HAVE been outlining in these pages a course of 
conduct that means a lifelong conflict, and that re- 
quires manhood of the greatest virility. Whichever way we 
turn, we have to face a foe of uncommon ingenuity and 
strength. The wiles of the Prince of the air are by no means 
to be despised, "for our wrestling is not against flesh and 
blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, 
against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual 
hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.' ' To stand suc- 
cessfully against such forces of evil, and to make progress 
against them, to take our proper part in maintaining the 
moral order which has been divinely established, we must be 
ready for every eventuality, we must, as Paul says in a 
famous passage, "put on the whole armor of God." What- 
ever may be said as to the exalting of the military in order 
to national security, no one can question the necessity of re- 
ligious preparedness. What that is, is indicated in the various 
accouterments mentioned by the apostle and used in ancient 
warfare, which was quite different from that of to-day, which 
was carried on with no modern paraphernalia, ranging from 
airplane to submarine. 

There were then no firearms. Fighting was hand to 
hand and foot to foot. The combatants accordingly protected 
themselves as completely as they could with armor, which 

[186] 



COMPLETE ARMOR : RELIGIOUS PREPAREDNESS 

was improved from generation to generation, till in the reign 
of England's Henry the Seventh it was well-nigh perfect. 
The soldier was entirely covered by his strange suit of mail, 
even to the face. We read of a battle a few centuries ago 
in Italy where tw T o armies fought from nine o'clock in the 
morning till four in the afternoon, without a solitary person 
being killed or even wounded. Most of us would prefer that 
sort of harmless warfare to the present, where one is exposed 
to a storm of shot and shell, to missiles from the air above and 
from the sea below. Gunpowder particularly has so revo- 
lutionized things, that, unless the mind runs far back into 
the past, we do not get the apostle's idea, when he tells us to 
put on the whole armor of God. He meant that we should 
have religiously all the defenses employed in his day for a 
face to face conflict. There is one thing very noticeable about 
the various integuments which he recounts, there is no armor 
for the back. No Christian should ever receive the wound that 
the Grecian Achilles did, in the heel, for he should always 
be facing the foe. He is never supposed to flee from the 
enemy, and therefore needs to be protected only from the 
front. 

He is engaged, too, in a struggle, where every man is to 
a certain extent alone, each standing or falling on his own 
responsibility. Of old it was not so much solid columns of 
men hurled the one against the other, as it was individual 
meeting individual in mortal combat. The battle in the 
seventh book of Homer's Iliad, for instance, was not between 
the Trojan and Grecian hosts, but between two single heroes. 
It was a very personal conflict, giving us a different concep- 
tion of fighting from Tennyson, who has terrible artillery 
mowing down rank after rank of brave troops : 

[187] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

1 1 Cannon to right of them, 
Cannon to left of them, 
Cannon in front of them 
Volleyed and thundered." 

Josephus gives a thrilling description of a warrior fighting 
singlehanded the enemy. His name was Julian, and he drove 
before him a whole crowd of Jews, till he unfortunately 
slipped, and says the historian, "fell down upon his back with 
a very great noise, which was made by his armor. This made 
those that were running away to turn back," and gathering 
round the fallen soldier they ' ' struck at him with their spears 
and with their swords on all sides. Now he received a great 
many of the strokes of these iron weapons upon his shield, 
and often attempted to get up again, but was thrown down 
by those that struck at him ; yet did he, as he lay along, stab 
many of them with his sword. Nor was he soon killed, as 
being covered with his helmet and his breastplate in those 
parts of his body where he might be mortally wounded, ' ' but 
at last "he yielded to his fate." 

This incident is all the more interesting, because it gives 
a picture of a soldier fighting in the very style of armor 
described in the epistle to the Ephesians. Moreover, the 
event occurred in the same century in which Paul lived, and 
the name, Julian, was kindred to that of the centurion Julius, 
who had the apostle in charge on the voyage to Rome. Be- 
sides, the soldier was a Roman, and Paul was chained to 
such a one, when he wrote his vivid words. As he dictated 
the successive sentences to his amanuensis, his eyes would 
rest upon the attending guard's girdle running round the 
waist, the breastplate covering the heart, the spiked sandals 
on the feet, the large oblong shield to hold in front of all, 

[188] 



COMPLETE ARMOR : RELIGIOUS PREPAREDNESS 

the helmet on the head with its waving, triumphant plume, 
and the bright sword hanging at the side. All these are cited 
as belonging to "the whole armor of God," and the descriptive 
touches were given from actual sight at the time. 

We are urged to put on this armor, and we ought to be 
eager and prompt to obey. When Vulcan prepared for 
Achilles his armor, "divinely wrought in every part," there 
was, according to the blind Greek bard, this maternal exhorta- 
tion: 

"And now receive 
This sumptuous armor, forged by Vulcan's hand, 
Beautiful, such as no man ever wore." 

The response was immediate : 

"He lifted up the god's magnificent gift 
Rejoicing, and, when long his eyes had dwelt 
Delighted on the marvelous workmanship," 

he said, 

"A god indeed, my mother, must have given 
These arms, the work of heavenly hands : no man 
Could forge them. Now I arm myself for war. ' ' 

Such, for substance, should be the sentiment of every soldier 
of the cross, when there is presented to him the celestial 
panoply, of which we proceed to note the various parts. 

1. First, "having girded your loins w T ith truth." That 
speaks of genuineness, of consistency. Timothy was counseled 
to have among other things a "good conscience," and Paul 

[189] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

said he was careful always to maintain a "conscience void of 
offence. " The obligation rests upon all, to be perfectly gen- 
uine. The thought seems to be that there is a good deal of 
shamming in religion. Some do not take hold of it frankly 
and heartily. They play fast and loose therewith. They do 
little things, which they know to be at least of doubtful 
propriety. They do not keep their skirts clear of the dust, 
there is sometimes a sweeping of the common pavement. The 
line of demarcation between them and others is not distinct 
enough. There is not a right-about-face in their manner of 
life. They live about the same as others do, they do not come 
out fairly and squarely on the right side, they do not become 
"separate from sinners.' ' They claim that they want to be 
thorough Christians, but this is only about half true. If they 
were entirely sincere, determined to be unequivocal disciples, 
there would not be so many loose ends about their Christian 
character ; there would not be so many places where even the 
world sees that the proper bounds are not kept. The loins 
should be girded up, if any would be good soldiers of Jesus 
Christ. Their robes, in what might be called a spirit of too 
great worldliness, should not be allowed to dangle about their 
feet, making them to trip and stumble. They are to draw the 
lines closer, they are to tighten the girdle, keeping themselves 
up trim and well-in-hand religiously. They are to avoid the 
little inconsistencies of a life frayed on the edges. 

2. Next, there is to be "put on the breastplate of right- 
eousness. ' ' That goes deeper than what has just been urged. 
It is a protest against graver wrongs than the small delinquen- 
cies that are merely compromising. It is an arraignment of 
the more serious shortcomings that are simply fatal to the 
exercising of any influence for good upon other lives. It 
emphasizes the ethical element, reaching to the very founda- 

[190] 



COMPLETE ARMOR: RELIGIOUS PREPAREDNESS 

tions of character. There should be genuine moral worth. 
Uprightness, trustworthiness, with word as good as gold, is 
what counts for the kingdom. None should be vulnerable at 
such a vital point, as to be lacking in real rectitude of life. 
The very heart of religion is stabbed, if any are not straight 
in business, and honorable in all their dealings with their 
fellowmen. Here is where Christianity receives many a home 
thrust. "There's your church-member !' ' is the not infre- 
quent sneer, as some discreditable deficiency is pointed out. 
One does not pay his bills, or he is anything but reliable. 
Such a person's deleterious influence injures a whole church. 
This of course should not be so, for profession does not by 
any means imply or insure the possession of the new life. 
And yet though the innocent should not suffer for the guilty, 
there can not be too great carefulness as to the daily conduct ; 
we should be unassailable there, putting on the breastplate of 
righteousness. If all were equipped with that, with simple 
righteousness of life, against which could be made no charges 
of any gravity, and against which could be breathed no sus- 
picions even, resistless would be such religions forces in 
advancing to the battle. They would not be hampered by 
weakening inuendoes whispered to their disadvantage. 

3. What else? "Having shod your feet with the prepara- 
tion of the gospel of peace. ' ' That is, we should be constantly 
prepared for service. We should ever have our sandals on, 
or, as we would say, hat in hand, ready to start. We should 
keep ourselves in readiness for marching, "instant in season 
and out of season," always alert. We should be quick to take 
up duties, to fall into line with the rest who are given to 
religious activity. 

In olden times, it was not always soldier meeting soldier ; 
it was sometimes army engaging army. While the Romans 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

coul'd fight singly, they could also mass their forces, till, says 
Josephus, they seemed "one body, so well coupled together 
were their ranks, so sudden were their turnings about, so 
sharp their hearing as to what orders were given them, so 
quick their sight of the ensigns, and so nimble were their 
hands when they set to work." They would have their san- 
dals all on, standing, so to speak, lined up and waiting for 
the word of command. "Then/' to quote again from the 
Jewish historian, "does the crier stand at the general's right 
hand, and ask them thrice . . . whether they be now ready 
to go out to war or not ? To which they reply as often, with 
a loud and cheerful voice, saying, We are ready. And this 
they do almost before the question is asked them: they do 
this as filled with a kind of martial fury, and at the same time 
they so cry out, they lift up their right hands also. ' ' We are 
ready, ready, ready ! There should be this alacrity in Chris- 
tian warfare. All should have their sandals on, prepared for 
action on the minute. When a pastor asks his people if they 
are ready for work, they should hold up both hands and 
answer, We are ready. Only thus can a church advance with 
the strength of unbroken ranks, and with the irresistible force 
of a Macedonian phalanx. That was a fine thing which 
Pompey declared he could say, namely, "Whenever I stamp 
with my foot in any part of Italy, there will rise up forces 
enough in an instant, both horse and foot." When the Cap- 
tain of our salvation stamps with his foot, gives the signal 
for action, he should find the Christian to be at least equal 
to the Roman discipline, as his followers rally at once to the 
call. When Nehemiah said, "In what place soever ye hear 
the sound of the trumpet, resort ye thither unto us," they 
did respond to the summons without the slightest hesitation. 

[192] 



COMPLETE ARMOR: RELIGIOUS PREPAREDNESS 

That sort of thing is what wins victories, on the religious 
field and everywhere. 

4. Sill further, "taking up the shield of faith, where- 
with ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil 
one. ' ' This was that, upon which the arrows wrapped round 
with flaming tow were caught and extinguished, and thrown 
harmlessly off. There is to be an unfaltering faith, for God 
can not use those who are discouraged, any more than a 
General can. But his followers with an -unwavering trust 
are well-nigh omnipotent, and like Alexander can conquer the 
world. Very significantly the crowning work of the great 
artist upon the shield of Achilles was, says the poet, when 
he "poured the ocean round; in living silver seemed the waves 
to roll . . . and bound the whole. " This indicates the globe- 
encircling and world-conquering nature of faith. There must 
be confidence in order to success. The opposite of such a 
spirit is paralyzing. This was illustrated once in the Romans 
under Antony, when, says Plutarch, "They chanced upon 
an herb that was mortal, first taking away all sense and 
understanding. He that had eaten of it remembered nothing 
in the world, and employed himself only in moving great 
stones from one place to another, which he did with as much 
earnestness and industry as if it had been a business of the 
greatest consequence. Through all the camp there was nothing 
to be seen but men grubbing upon the ground at stones, which 
they carried from place to place." This might be supposed 
to be an apocryphal incident, did we not see substantially the 
same thing occurring repeatedly at present. People under 
the influence of the herb of discouragement imagine a great 
many insuperable obstacles in the way of any triumphing. 
They should not recognize any such thing as failure. They 
should be like England's great naval hero, the illustrious 

[193] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

Nelson, who at a crisis in British maritime affairs, when a 
superior officer of timid spirit gave the signal to discontinue 
the conflict, put the glass to his blind eye which he had lost 
in a terrific battle, as he said, "I really do not see the signal/' 
and thereupon he waged the contest with renewed energy, 
and soon had the satisfaction of seeing the Danish fleet scat- 
tered and destroyed. It was the same distinguished com- 
mander, who on the Mediterranean in the last victory he 
gained hoisted at a critical juncture the famous signal, 
"England expects every man to do his duty," and with that 
the British warships moved forward to a complete triumph 
over the combined French and Spanish fleets. That is what 
confidence will do. 

Not that we are to be over-confident, trusting to our own 
strength, forgetting our dependence upon the Almighty. It 
is related of some German barbarians, in their passage of 
the snowy Alps into sunny Italy, that when they reached the 
top of the mountains, ' ' placing their broad shields under their 
bodies, they let themselves slide from the precipices along 
those vast slippery descents." This they did, we read, in 
"contempt of their enemies," the Romans. Instead of march- 
ing in military array, holding up their shields, they sat on 
them, and went sliding along, helter-skelter. The disciplined 
Romans met and defeated the tumultuously-moving bar- 
barians. The serried ranks of sin will rout careless Christians, 
who slide along on their shields of faith, who grow over- 
confident, who are off guard and do not hold steadily before 
them the thought of their dependence upon God, who do not 
keep before them their shields of faith. They should ever 
have on this part of the religious armor, they should con- 
stantly bear in mind that they can quench and repel the fiery 
darts of their spiritual foe only by trusting in God, and, as 



COMPLETE AEMOR: RELIGIOUS PREPAREDNESS 

Cromwell would say, by keeping their powder dry, by keeping 
their shields out of Alpine snows. 

5. "And," again, "take the helmet of salvation." This 
was an accouterment, which encased the head, and which else- 
where is designated by the same writer as "the hope of sal- 
vation. ' ' From the helmet imposingly and gracefully nodded 
the plume, waving, as it were, with glad victory. Ours is a 
religion of hopefulness and of assured triumph, and very at- 
tractive, therefore, should it be to the young especially. They 
may at first see in it something rather repelling, from which 
they instinctively shrink, but once familiarized with the idea 
of being religious in a normal way, they will see nothing 
forbidding therein. 

When Hector took leave of his wife and child, on setting 
out for the battle-field, the lad was afraid of his helmeted 
father. The scene has been charmingly painted in the 
Iliad: 

"Hector stretched his arms 
To take the boy; the boy shrank crying back 
To his fair nurse's bosom, scared to see 
His father helmeted in glittering brass, 
And eyeing with affright the horse-hair plume 
That grimly nodded from the lofty crest. 
At this both parents in their fondness laughed ; 
And hastily the mighty Hector took 
The helmet from his brow and laid it down 
Gleaming upon the ground, and, having kissed 
His darling son and tossed him up in play, 
Prayed. ' ' 

The young are sometimes frightened, as we approach them 
with our religiousness waving solemnly like a plumed helmet 

[195] 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

from the head, especially as the minister approaches them in 
the full regalia of his office, with an undue seriousness and 
stateliness, but we can do like Hector, put our helmet, our 
religion, where it will not be quite so conspicuous till they 
get a little used to it, and while we are playful with the 
children we can also be prayerful, as was the Grecian hero. 
Then the plumed Christian hope will gradually assume a 
most attractive appearance. Let the young be approached, not 
abruptly, while we are armed cap-a-pie from head to foot, 
while we are in full religious regalia, but let them be ap- 
proached naturally and judiciously, and they will soon see 
that nothing about the Christian armor is so beautiful as the 
plumed helmet, as the hope element, which, adorning the 
head and possessing the mind, overtops every thing else. 
Religion is not something gloomy but hopeful, giving promise 
of the life that now is and of that which is to come. Too 
great solemnity may operate against religious efficiency. An 
excessive seriousness may handicap the army of the Lord. 
Here is often involved the gaining or losing of the young 
folks. If we would win them, we can not be too grave. There 
must indeed be the stern bravery of the hardy soldier, who, 
however, on this particular part of the field must put "a 
cheerful courage on." 

6. There is to be added "the sword of the Spirit, which 
is the word of God." The charge to Timothy was, "Preach 
the word." Here is our mightiest instrumentality for the 
accomplishing of results. It particularly changes the defen- 
sive attitude into the offensive, into the aggressive. The 
Bible is a volume which we can not use and wield too much. 
It is a keen and double-edged sword, and what sturdy blows 
have been dealt by it for civilization and for the higher in- 
terests of mankind all down the ages ! It, as every student 

[196] 



COMPLETE ARMOR: RELIGIOUS PREPAREDNESS 

of history knows, is that which has shaped the destiny of the 
nations called Christian, and the reason Christendom is so 
far ahead of the pagan world is because of this powerful 
weapon of the Scriptures, which we are commanded to search, 
and with which we are to familiarize ourselves. It is a Book 
which has been subjected to the severest criticism, and yet 
has nobly stood the test. It has, so to speak, been bent double 
by the critics, only to spring back straight as ever in all that 
is essential and vital, like a genuine Damascus Blade, which 
it is. This is the weapon which we should grasp with the old 
victorious shout, "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" 
while we move forward to the complete and final triumph. 
We see it flashing in the air, when Christ himself was tempted 
in the wilderness, as he resisted Satan with repeated quotation 
from God's own Word. We can gain the victory over every 
temptation by using the promises of Holy Writ, and with the 
same mighty sword we can overcome every opposing force. 
Thus equipped, from an armory like that of Bunyan's im- 
mortal allegory, we shall ever most gloriously triumph. 
Therefore it is that Wesley says, 

"Stand then in his great might, 

With all his strength endued, 
And take, to arm you for the fight, 

The panoply of God." 

7. Have we named all the pieces of the "full armor" 
necessary to religious preparedness ? Most, from their recol- 
lection of the apostolic list, would probably answer in the 
affirmative. But perhaps the most important integument of 
all has so far been omitted. We reach the proper finale in 
this description as it closes, "with all prayer and supplication 



OUT OF JOINT WITH THE MORAL ORDER 

praying at all seasons." We learn of this arrangement of 
the Roman army on a certain occasion: " Those in the first 
rank knelt on one knee, holding their shields before them, 
the next rank holding theirs over the first, and so again 
others over these, much like the tiling of a house, .... the 
whole affording a sure defense against arrows, which glance 
upon them without doing any harm. The Parthians, seeing 
the Romans down upon their knees, could not imagine but 
that it must proceed from weariness ; so that they laid down 
their bows, and, taking their spears, made a fierce onset, 
when the Romans, with a great cry, leapt upon their feet, 
striking hand to hand with their javelins, slew the foremost, 
and put the rest to flight." It is when disciples get down 
on their knees in prayer, with close interlocking of shields of 
faith, that they gain decisive victories for Christ. Cowper 
most truly says : 

"Restraining prayer, we cease to fight; 
Prayer makes the Christian 's armor bright ; 
And Satan trembles when he sees 
The weakest saint upon his knees." 

Queen Mary of Scotland said she feared the prayers of John 
Knox more than an army of soldiers. We must not, there- 
fore, be weak at this strategic point. The far-flung battle line 
does not assure triumph, unless all advance upon their knees 
until they have received the promised enduement from on 
high, and then, springing to their feet for the culminating, 
brilliant charge, they always prove invincible. 



[198] 



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